


The Middle of the Ride

by trashcocoon



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Drinking, Drugs, F/F, F/M, GAY AWAKENINGS, Gang Violence, Holy shit this is a lot of tags, Homophobia, House Parties, It's Just A Teenage Romance Movie Oh God, M/M, Making Out, Punk Eren, Secret Relationships, Sexual implications, Soccer Player Annie, Soccer Player Mikasa, Stoner Connie, Stoner Sasha, Teacher Hange Zoë, Teacher Levi, Ymir and Krista are in Eren's band and also they're the all-knowing lesbians, parent leaving home, semi-abusive parent, small town setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:02:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5878639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcocoon/pseuds/trashcocoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Suddenly there’s a noise of flip-flops slapping hard against pavement, and Mikasa looks up to see a group of three teenagers- a burly blonde guy in a lime green shirt, a timid-looking boy with dark, pinned up bangs, and a girl with lemon frosting-colored hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head, long bangs somehow not sticking to her cheeks as she walks at the front of the group with a skateboard under her muscular arm and a near-dead look in her blue jean eyes. They walk past the other three, not acknowledging their presence in the slightest. Mikasa stares at the girl as she walks past, buttercup locks somehow catching a nonexistent breeze."</p>
<p>Mikasa, Eren, and Armin have just moved to the small town of Trost, and things are already shaping up to be way too exciting. Along with the new, exciting, and somewhat terrifying personal journeys they find themselves embarking upon, they must face something else that boils underneath the surface of Trost, something that could change this town forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hottest Day of the Summer

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Mikannie fic that got wildly out of hand. Although Mikannie's still the central focus, there's a bigger overarching plot and a bunch of other pairings, so I'll put the main pairings at the beginning of each chapter in case you just want to read about your otp. There's no explicit sexual content, but there's a lot of homophobia and other stuff, so it's not rated; however, if it were a movie, it would probably be PG-13. IMPORTANT: Eren and Mikasa are biological twins in this. Please enjoy, and Happy Femslash February!

It is so unbelievably hot. The white sun scorches the pavement below Mikasa, Armin, and Eren’s dangling feet, and they draw them under the shade of the bench, slowly, sluggishly. The light radiating off the store window behind them isn’t helping, and Mikasa considers suggesting they move to the other side, because even if it doesn’t have a bench, it at least has an awning; but it’s too hot to open her mouth, almost too hot to bring the toxic waste-blue popsicle to her lips. Her hand is covered in the sticky drips from it, and she’s seventeen years old and knows that’s disgusting, but she can’t muster the energy to clean it up. All three of their bangs are pinned up on their heads, and even short sleeves aren’t short enough for Mikasa and Armin, who have rolled them up their shoulders. Eren is wearing a tank top, but it’s black, so he must be just as hot. Of the three of them, he is the only one eating his Popsicle quickly enough to keep it from dripping all over him, his legs swinging back and forth with his boundless energy. In the street in front of them, kids walk beside their scooters and bikes rather than riding them, the metal too hot even wearing shoes. The already faded awnings of the stores whose exteriors haven’t changed since the fifties seem to droop under the unbearable heat, and the sidewalk, normally covered in teenagers smoking and horsing around, is empty, as everyone with a grain of sense is in their house today. But Eren has somewhere around negative two grains of sense, so here they are, eating cheap popsicles that are not nearly worth the ordeal of sitting out here, all at his request.

            Suddenly there’s a noise of flip-flops slapping hard against pavement, and Mikasa looks up to see a group of three teenagers- a burly blonde guy in a lime green shirt, a timid-looking boy with dark, pinned up bangs, and a girl with lemon-frosting colored hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head, long bangs somehow not sticking to her cheeks as she walks at the front of the group with a skateboard under her muscular arm and a near-dead look in her blue jean eyes. They walk past the other three, not acknowledging their presence in the slightest. Mikasa stares at the girl as she walks past, buttercup locks somehow catching a nonexistent breeze.

            It is so unbelievably hot.

 ***************

            “Soccer camp?” asks Armin disbelievingly, nearly falling into the water with shock. “But you won’t see us all day. And it’s so hot. Why?”

            “I have to become stronger,” Mikasa replies calmly, closing her eyes and lying back so she floats on the pool water. “Since we’re transferring, there’s going to be a whole new team with whole new teammates, which means it’s going to be much harder for me to become captain.”

            Armin gives her a look that is a mixture of irritated and sad, folding his arms over his bare, delicate chest. “Mikasa, why do you want to become captain so badly?”

            Mikasa opens her eyes and flashes Armin a look, her dark red bathing suit bottom dipping below the surface of the water slightly with the motion, then glances apprehensively towards the lanes, where Eren has challenged some other random patron to a race. “You know why.”

            “So you’ll get a scholarship and your parents’ money can go towards Eren’s tuition, yes, I know that, but surely you don’t need to be captain to do that? Plenty of excellent players have been scouted who _aren’t_ captains, you know.”

            Mikasa looks back over at Armin, not in the water, just dangling his feet in- just dangling his feet, because he’s too afraid to get in.

            “Scouts won’t pay attention to a team who’s no good, and I don’t trust anyone else to hone a good team,” she replies, then holds her nose and ducks her head under the water. She comes up gasping and whips her head around to shake the water off. Armin is watching her resignedly.

            “You’ll still see me in the evenings- it only goes until five,” she reassures him.

            “The pool’s not open that late,” grumps Armin.

            “It’s not as if you’d get in it even if it was,” teases Mikasa. Armin folds his arms tighter and looks away. The conversation is over.

***************

            “Line up!”

            The kids hurry into a line, ponytails flicking in haste.

            “Girls and boys separately! How stupid are you? They’re two different teams!”

            The line rearranges itself, and Mikasa finds herself next to a short girl with buttercup-colored hair in a bun and a purple t-shirt. A flashback to the hottest day of the summer fills her head, and she looks away quickly.

            “So every single one of you wants to be on the soccer team, huh?” asks Coach Ackerman, striding between the lines. He’s only a little taller than the blonde girl, but his aura and reputation seem to fill out another foot and a half. He pauses to laugh humorlessly. “Kind of a lot of you, aren’t there? You do know only the top fifteen from each get on the team?”

            It’s not a question. Everybody knows. Suddenly he drops the four balls he’s holding and somehow with only two feet, he manages to kick them into the stomachs of four separate people in less than a second. Amid the stifled noises of pain, he says, “Let me guess, you weren’t ready. If that’s the case, you’re not ready for the team. The field is a battleground. You have to be ready at every second to receive the ball- slip up once, and the other team has already scored.”

            The blonde girl stiffens. Mikasa resists the urge to look down at her scuffed blue cleats and keeps her eyes on Coach Ackerman.

            “Passing drills, long distance, go!” A couple people shoot off, but some linger with confusion. The coach turns to them with a nasty look on his face. “Didn’t you hear me? Do as your coach says! Passing drills, now!”

            Mikasa runs off quickly and finds herself opposite the blonde girl, her purple shirt a tiny beacon against the eggshell blue sky. She sends a ball whizzing at twenty miles per hour flat on the grass, directly to Mikasa’s foot. Feeling annoyed for some reason, Mikasa sends it back even harder; at this distance, it’s impossible to see if she’s fazed the girl at all. The ball comes back, somehow even harder. Mikasa narrows her eyes. So this is what she’s up against. From there on, it’s obvious that a competition has begun. She becomes aware of the other players’ eyes on them as the ball goes flying back and forth at increasing velocity, until finally, she sees the blonde girl stumble ever so slightly as the ball connects with her foot with just a little too much force to handle. Mikasa smiles slightly. Victory.

            “What’s your name?” asks the girl as they’re packing up to leave that day. No introducing herself first- just coming head-on with her demand. Mikasa pauses in peeling off her dirty white socks and says reluctantly, “Mikasa Ackerman. You?”

            “Annie Leonhardt,” she replies, standing up and slinging her shiny, definitely new, blue Adidas bag over her shoulder. “I look forward to playing with you more.”

            Mikasa watches from the top of the hill where the sun is setting in neon orange behind her as Annie gets into the front seat of a dark blue convertible with the two other guys she’d been with that first day and drive away.

            “Yeah,” she mutters, starting the trek down the hill amongst the throngs of chattering players. “Me too.”

****************

            “Mikasaaaa! There you are!” yells Eren, running up to her the minute she opens the door. “Let’s go somewhere, I’m so bored. I had to hang around with Connie and Sasha all day! Is this how it’s gonna be every day now?” he demands.

            “Connie and Sasha?” says Mikasa incredulously, dumping her stuff on the mat and stomping up the worn oak stairs to their shared room. Eren follows her. “You do know that they’re the biggest dealers around, right?”

            “Hey, it’s not like I actually smoked with them or anything, I just _hung out_ with them. And I wouldn’t have had to if you’d been here!”  
            “What about Armin?” asks Mikasa in a muffled voice as she pulls her shirt over her head then dives into the spacious closet they still sometimes play in. “And how many times did they offer you weed?”

            “Armin was with _Jean Kirschtein_ of all people. Fucking Kirschtein. I don’t get it! Why would Armin want to hang out with someone so loud and obnoxious?”

            Mikasa suppresses an eye roll and yanks a loose dark green blouse on over her sports bra. “How many times did they offer you weed?” she repeats.

            “Only like, three times.”

            “Only?” she asks, raising an eyebrow as she pulls on a clean pair of high-waisted denim shorts.

            “I didn’t take it,” says Eren crossly. “Anyway, let’s go now. Armin said he and Jean would be done by now.”

            Right on cue, there’s a knock on their door.

            “Fine,” says Mikasa, heading back for the stairs. “But I’m hungry, so we have to get dinner.”

            “Sure,” says Eren, barely paying attention as he hurdles past he, his faded denim jacket flying out behind him, and flings open the door to greet Armin.

            “Finally!” he exclaims, flipping the bird to the Mercedes peeling away from the curb. “What were you guys even doing?” he continues as he yanks them both back out the door.

            “Hanging out with Marco. Ouch, Eren, get off of me!”

            “Eren…” mutters Mikasa, climbing into the front seat of their shared jeep.

            “Hold on a second, guys, I’m gonna floor it,” he says excitedly.

            “Eren,” she repeats slightly louder this time. Too late. Armin’s rather undignified shriek is whisked away by the wind as they speed off into the warm, glowing pink twilight.

*****************

            “So how was soccer camp, Mikasa?” asks Eren, tossing her a wrapped cheeseburger as he jogs back from Five Guys and electing to clamber through the windowless frame of the battered old Jeep rather than open the door, his worn-out red high tops leaving dirty marks. “Did you meet Coach Ackerman?”

            “It was fantastic,” says Mikasa flatly, unwrapping it and taking a bite as Eren starts the car again. “And yes, I met your man crush.”

            “What-he is not-“ Eren splutters, starting the car again and backing out aggressively. “I just admire him a lot! He was an amazing athlete and didn’t take shit from anybody.”  
            “Eren, that’s what a man crush is,” Armin tells him amusedly.

            “Whatever! Just tell me about him, Mi,” says Eren crossly, eyes back on the road.

            “He was pretty much just like every coach I’ve ever had attitude-wise,” she replies, brushing crumbs off her hands into the evening air as they speed along. “But his instructional method was a lot more…physical than anyone else I’ve had yet.”

            “Physical?” demands Armin, leaning forward. The wind flicks his short blonde ponytail against the base of his neck, and his loose gray t-shirt billows back a little bit.

            “His exact words were, ‘I think that pain is the most effective means of discipline’. The first thing he did was drop-kick a bunch of soccer balls into a few kids’ stomach, and when we did laps, the first kid to drop had to do fifty push-ups while he sat on their back taking notes and yelling at everyone.”

            “Holy shit!” says Eren excitedly. “Is that _legal?_ ”

            “Are you just going to accept everything he does without question?” mutters Armin.

            “He was the best soccer player in the nation for years, and the only reason he got kicked out was because he stood up to some dumb gangs,” says Eren defensively.

            “And then he went on to teach high school…” Armin trails off exasperatedly.

            “Whatever. I don’t really care that much about Ackerman, I just need to get on the team so I can be captain,” says Mikasa, crumpling up her wrapper and sticking it in a cup holder. “Where are we going, anyway?” she adds.

            “Bowling,” replies Eren. “I have it from Armin that Kirschtein is gonna be there, and I plan to beat his ass.”

            Armin groans. “Eren, does everything we do for fun have to involve getting in a fight?”

            “It doesn’t! I just want to show that horse-faced douchebag who’s boss.”

            “You’re not even that good at bowling…”

            “Shut up, Mikasa!”

********************

            Pin Stripes is the only bowling alley in a fifty-mile radius, and just like everything else in town, it was built in the nineteen fifties and pretty much just left that way. The neon red spaghetti writing attached to a painted wooden board above the door still advertises fifty cents for a bottle of soda, despite the fact that the amount has tripled in the time since. As they walk in, an explosion of noise greets them, coming from both the crackly old overhead speakers blaring cheesy pop music and apparently the entire teenage population of Trost.

            “Why are there so many people here?” shouts Armin over the noise as they walk to the counter. Wordlessly, Mikasa points to a sign that reads, “Groups of Three Bowl for Free! (Tonight)”.

            Before they’ve all even finished strapping on their shoes, Eren is up and searching the alley for the most popular boy in school- in town, really- Jean Kirschtein.

            “What were you guys _actually_ doing today?” Mikasa asks Armin quietly, the two of them hanging back as Eren surges ahead, yelling Jean’s name.

            “I told you, hanging out with Marco!” says Armin defensively.

            “Okay, but what were you _doing_ with Marco?” she asks in the same quiet voice as they watch Jean look up and grin with anticipation at Eren’s challenge.

            “We just…went driving,” Armin says, voice suddenly much quieter now. Mikasa scowls. She supposes Armin is entitled to his secrets, if he must have them. She just doesn’t trust that Jean guy.

            “Mikasa! Armin!” yells Eren. “Get down here and be my team!”

            Jean’s group joins in the yelling, but when they come, they immediately start making protesting noises at Armin.

            “Aw, come on Arlert!” yells the blonde guy who’d picked Annie up from camp that day, teasingly. “I thought you were on our side!”

            Armin gives an embarrassed little laugh and shrugs, picking up a ball. “I don’t think I’m really your biggest worry on this team,” he says, cradling it to his chest.

            “That’s true,” says Jean, sticking his hands in his green letterman jacket. How is he wearing that? It’s like eighty degrees out. “I’ve hear Mikasa is a total beast when it comes to bowling.”

            Mikasa makes no comment and instead picks up her own ball and steps up to the lane amidst cheering and various derogatory remarks. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she catches a flash of blonde hair and a curved nose. It’s Annie, on the arm (sort of) of the tall, dark-haired boy with the nervous eyes. She has a dark blue bandana wrapped around her head and a black flannel tied around her waist over ripped short-shorts.

            “Hey, Bertholdt and Annie! Didn’t think you guys would come!” yells the blonde guy.

            “Hey Reiner,” says Bertholdt. “Do I get something for convincing her to come?”  
            “No,” says Annie crossly, then catches sight of Mikasa. Her eyes widen.

            “Come play, Annie!” says Jean enthusiastically.

            She makes no comment but moves to stand next to him, not taking her eyes off Mikasa once.

            Mikasa takes a deep breath, steps forward, and lets the ball go in one fluid motion. It rolls down the alley with the same smooth precision she kicks a ball with and crashes into the exact center of the pins, all the others toppling down around them. There’s an explosion of cheering and shouting.

            “Holy shit, a strike right off the bat!” yells Jean, punching Marco in the shoulder for some reason.

            “Daaaaamn, she _is_ a beast!” yells Reiner, drawing the word out longer than anyone ever should. “We’ve got some actual competition here!”

            Eren, apparently ignoring the “actual competition” line, lets out a loud whoop and grabs Mikasa around the waist, rubbing her head with more force than a normal brother might’ve. She straightens herself out as soon as he lets go and catches Annie looking like she might actually be expressing emotion. Suddenly she unfolds her arms, which had previously looked like they could’ve been glued together, and walks up to the lane with irritated, staccato steps, and picks up a ball.

            There’s a moment of shocked silence, then Marlo yells, “Get ‘em, Annie!” This incites more cheers that just barely drown out the Beyonce song crackling over the speakers. Before they can even get some decent hype going, however, the ball is flying down the lane and sending the shiny white pins flying. Annie walks back amid more excited shouting, her face again wiped of all emotion.

            People jeer good-naturedly at Eren when he misses all but one of the pins but are supportive and slap Armin on the back when his ball rolls into the gutter, because that’s just how teenagers are. But when Mikasa steps up again, people get excited. She closes her eyes and absent mindedly rubs her lips together, feeling the silky remains of her lipstick smear around, thinks of Annie watching her, and rolls. Another perfect strike.

            This time when Annie steps up to bowl, Jean yells, “Ooh, a chick fight!” at which Annie hits him none too gently in the chest with the bowling ball. Of course, it’s a strike for her too.

            It becomes less of a team game than an extreme Annie vs. Mikasa smackdown from there on, and in the end, they tie perfectly. As the disappointed words and the “oh well, it was fun”’s ring out around them, Mikasa almost feels like she should be shaking Annie’s hand, but instead accepts a bottle of Coke from Eren and turns away resolutely to drink it. Three-quarters of it are gone in thirty seconds, her palm not even wet.

            “Let’s go,” she says to Eren and Armin, grabbing the ends of their sleeves and leading them out to the parking lot. She’s silent on the way back, and even Eren picks up on her mood. Both the boys are giving her apprehensive moods, so to lighten the mood, she lets out a massive belch that echoes around the parking lot. It has the two of them in hysterics all the way back to the car, and she ends up driving them all home. The night belongs to them.


	2. Give 'Em The Old One-Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter- no pairings, just some (very) important plot stuff. eren's pov. my tumblr is trashcocoon if you want to talk!

It’s Sunday, it’s raining, and Eren Jaeger is restless as hell.

            “Let’s call someone, Mikasa,” he says from the floor where, over the course of an hour, he has contorted himself into an absolutely ridiculous position as he tries to read his incredibly dull summer reading book. Next to him, Mikasa pauses in her sit-ups to tell him,

            “I said no. It’s six pm, raining, and my only day to rest before soccer camp again tomorrow.”

            “You call that resting?” demands Eren.

            “It’s relaxed conditioning,” says Mikasa, resuming sit-ups. Eren throws down his book.

            “Fine. Do your stupid relaxed conditioning. I’m going out.”

            “Where?”

            “I don’t know,” replied Eren, his voice coming out both pissed and confused.

            Normally Eren doesn’t like rain- it inhibits his ability to spring into action, not to mention he gets cold easily, but this is a nice, warm, summer rain- heavy enough not to be just plain annoying, but not the wrath of God come down to punish all those without an ark. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his unzipped black raincoat and watches his feet as they send water flying out every time they land in a particularly large puddle. He quickly makes a game of stepping in the biggest ones possible, still not looking up. Twenty-five minutes later, it occurs to him that he’s been watching his feet for exactly this long, and he slowly and apprehensively raises his head to see that not only has it grown dark out, he’s in a part of town he’s never seen before.

            Eren usually makes it his business to know every inch of a place he has to occupy for extended periods of time, but his family had only moved to Trost from Shiganshina three months ago when a huge tree fell on their house, basically destroying it as well as two others (including Armin’s, whose family had ended up moving to Trost with them). So, finding himself in parts of town that he doesn’t know is still a reoccurring incident, but they haven’t looked like _this_ so far.

            He’s wandered down an alleyway that only gives him about a foot and a half of space on either side of him, and there are no windows whatsoever in the surrounding buildings, their bricks so faded and chipped it looks more like people put lumps of mud together in the shape of a wall. He can just barely make out one streetlight a little ways down from him, but even from this distance, he can tell the glass has been shattered and the light is out. The entire place is dark, and the sound of the falling rain muffles any other hints to his surroundings. But wait- he hears that. He totally hears that. He spins around, his feet sending a spray of muddy water into the shadows around him.

            “Who’s there?!” he demands, whipping his head around. No response. But he _just_ heard footsteps, he’s sure of it. Slowly, he takes a step back towards the other end of the alley, but that’s as far as he gets before someone grabs him by the hood of his raincoat and jerks him backwards, their hot musty breath tickling his ear and a burly arm around his throat.

“Eren Jaeger, huh?” the guys mutters- Eren’s like ninety-six percent sure it’s a guy- and Eren feels a swoop of terror in his stomach. _He knows me. Who is he? Who do I know who would attack me?  
_             “Who…the hell…are you..?” he chokes out, frantically trying to calculate how much longer he can go with this arm around his neck. But he’s not too good at math, and when they guy starts dragging him farther down the alley rather than answering his question, he swings his fist blindly upwards with as much force as he can muster. There’s a feeling of something shifting slightly and suddenly his hand is covered in a substance much thicker than rain. With a muffled cry of surprise and pain, the grip on his throat loosens and Eren takes the opportunity to shove his way out and spin around, fists up and ready to fight his unknown attacker. But the guy is already halfway down the alleyway, hand clutched to his mouth, black hoodie drawn up over his head so not even his hair color is visible.

“Hey! Get back here!” yells Eren, running after him but stopping when he realizes the guy has already been swallowed by the rainy night.

******************

Eren slams the door behind him but doesn’t move. Mikasa looks up from where she’s doing sit-ups on the floor (still????) and immediately lets out a cry of shock.

“Mikasa?” their mother calls from the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

Eren makes frantic shushing gestures at her and she quickly calls, “Nothing Mom, it’s fine,” then scrambles up from the floor sans her usual grace and grabs Eren by the shoulders, whisper-yelling at him, “Eren! What the hell happened to you? You’re covered in blood and there are bruises on your neck!”

“I know Mikasa, I don’t need a diagnosis,” he hisses back grouchily. “Come upstairs.”

They walk up the stairs as quietly as they can, Mikasa leading the way, and when they get to their room, she shuts the door and rounds on him, hands on her hips, more of a mothering look on her face than even their actual mother has ever displayed.

“So?” she demands. “What happened?”

            Eren sweeps past her and flings himself onto his bed in the corner. “I got attacked.”  
            “Well, obviously, but by who? Was it Jean?”

            Eren snorts and flops onto his back, staring unseeingly at the peeling Taking Back Sunday and Blink-182 posters taped there rather crookedly, surrounded by other random bits of paper- concert and movie tickets, photographs, and stickers. “No. I _wish_ it had been, though- I definitely could’ve taken him.”

            Mikasa sits down on her own bed, which sticks out from the middle of the wall opposite Eren’s. “So you couldn’t take this person. Who was it?”

            Eren shakes his head, still staring at his ceiling. He wonders vaguely why all his stuff is taped up there as opposed to the walls and replies, “I don’t know. I couldn’t see his face.” He clenches his hand happily in his rumpled black sheets and adds, “My fist sure could though. I think I got his tooth- that’s where the blood comes from.” Suddenly he sits up excitedly with a creak of the mattress, holding out his fist for her to see. “His blood! I’ve got his blood on me! D’you think we could, like, run tests on it to see who it belongs to? We could totally do that! The science department head at our new school is supposed to be, like, a complete genius, like an actual mad scientist. I’ll bet if we found them we could get them to help!”

            Mikasa interrupts this flow before it can get any farther, saying, “No, Eren, we couldn’t, because that stuff costs a lot of money and it’s going to be all mixed up with your DNA now.”

            Eren frowns crossly and says, “Oh come on, I’m sure that’s not that big a deal. Don’t they have stuff to separate DNA, all that science-y junk? They’ll know how to do that! And I have money from the band’s gigs last year, that could totally cover it!”

            “No, Eren, I really don’t think it could. Besides, if you don’t want Mom to know about it then I doubt you’ll want a crazy science teacher to,” she points out.

            “Oh.” Eren deflates a little, staring at the action figures on the one of the shelves above his bed. “Well, I’ll find a way somehow. They can’t get away with that shit, attacking me in the middle of an alley for no reason,” he continues, talking more to the Captain America figurine than Mikasa. “I wonder why they did it? They knew my name.”

            “Hang on a second, they knew your _name?_ ” asks Mikasa, eyes narrowing.

            Eren’s frown deepens and he picks up Captain America, studying him from all sides. “Yeah. He went, ‘Eren Jaeger, huh?’” like he was confirming it, or…I don’t know, seeing what all the fuss is about.”

            Mikasa suppresses a snort and considers telling him there’s not really any fuss about him at all but instead says, “Then it’s someone who knows you. Or at least, someone who knows _of_ you.”

            “It’s a pretty small town Mikasa, that’s pretty much everyone.”

            Mikasa sighs. It’s true. Even though they’ve just moved here, Trost is so old and tight-knit that it almost seemed like everyone had been alerted to their and Armin’s presence, and within a week, people they’d met once could greet them by name on every corner. It’s a friendly, peaceful, well-connected town, which is why something like this is incredibly surprising.

            “Well-“ she pauses and sighs again, looking over at Eren’s side. His dark red electric guitar is sitting precariously on the well-condensed pile of both dirty and clean clothes leaning against the sky-blue wall. The big window over the head of his bed is sending rain-distorted light from the otherwise darkened street over the stereo and pile of souvenir guitar picks on his windowsill as well as Eren himself, where he’s still looking at the Captain America figurine like it’s the one who attacked him. Mikasa wonders if taking it out of his hands before he snaps it in half is a good idea, but before she gets the chance, he says,

            “What do you think he would’ve done to me?”

            “I don’t think he would’ve killed you, if that’s what you’re asking,” says Mikasa. The truth is that that’s the only thing she’s been able to think about- what _might’ve_ happened to him. Outside, the rain grows heavier.

            “Yeah,” Eren mutters. “I’d have killed him first anyway.”

            “Eren…” Mikasa chastises.

            “Never mind, it doesn’t matter,” says Eren, finally putting the figurine down on his cluttered nightstand, then grabbing his ridiculously old, beat-up black notebook.

            “Going to write all your feelings down in a song?” Mikasa deadpans.

            “Fuck off,” he mutters, grabbing a pen. “I have to find new members for the band. It’s the only way I can make money, anyways.”

            Mikasa lies down on her bed and grabs her phone. “Some teenagers get jobs.”

            “What, teenagers like Jean Kirschtein?” asks Eren without missing a beat or even looking up from his notebook. “No thanks.”

            “As if Jean actually works,” mutters Mikasa, opening up Facebook.

            “Probably just sits there and lets all the other employees do the work and _worship him_ ,” growls Eren, scribbling even faster. Mikasa wearily wonders if this is what people call an emo phase and gets up.

            “I’m going to have dinner. Come join us when you’re finished with your anger management exercises.”

            “Shut the fuck up Mikasa!” Eren yells crossly. Mikasa complies and opens the door.

            “Wait-“  
            She turns around. “Yeah?”  
            Eren looks at her with a fierce look in his eyes. “Promise you won’t tell Mom and Dad.”

            Mikasa offers him a rare smile before swishing out the door. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning to in the first place.”

 


	3. Armin's Gaydar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a day late I'm so sorry i don't even have a good excuse. jearmin (sort of) and some mikannie at the end. also! the name of this fic is from the song The Middle by Jimmy Eat World.

As usual, Armin’s day starts loudly and without his consent as his phone lights up and starts blaring its ringtone right next to his head where he’d dropped it last night as he fell asleep listening to Jean blabber on, and on…

            He doesn’t even need to check the caller ID to know that it’s him, and when he picks up with a bleary, “Hello?” Jean doesn’t even give him one back before launching into a series of comments, complaints and concerns.

            “Hey man, so I know I said we would go planning today but Marco just called to say he cancelled his plans, and he’s like never available, so-“

            “Yeah, yeah, I don’t really need to hear the rest of it,” mumbles Armin, squinting at the light coming in through his windows and reflecting off the academia trophies on the shelf next to his bed.

            “Really? Thanks so much dude, you’re the best. But I still wanna go planning so how about afterwards? Like four o’clock?”

            “It’s all fine, Jean,” says Armin, sinking farther down into his pillows. His soft, soft pillows, and warm sheets, and Jean’s voice just keeps going on, and on…

********************

            “That was the third time you’ve fallen asleep while on the phone with me this week,” Jean complains, pushing himself off the brick wall with his arms folded over his weird half-denim-half-hoodie thing that all jocks seem to have as Armin approaches.

            “I don’t really think I’m the one to blame when you never call me earlier than ten pm and want to talk for three hours,” replies Armin crossly. “I’ve never known a boy to talk on the phone for that long at a time.”

            He realizes immediately that this is the wrong thing to say as suddenly Jean’s face is drained of all color and he rasps out, “Really? Is that a girly thing? Do you think anyone else would notice?”  
            “No no no!” says Armin, frantically backpedaling. “It’s not a girly thing at all, Eren actually used to do it to me all the time. Still does sometimes. Besides, I’m the only one you really need to talk for such long periods of time, so how would anyone else know?”

            Jean stares at him apprehensively. Armin sighs. Even after months of this, the guy still has doubts.

            “And no, I didn’t tell anybody. I promise I never will.”

            Jean relaxes minutely, and they start walking away from Armin’s house, Armin trailing his hand absent-mindedly over the wooden fence pickets. Across the street, two kids shriek at each other as they play tug-of-war over a basketball and another one desperately tries to pull them apart. Fluffy white clouds make the light of the sun hanging in the bowl of the brilliant blue sky patchy, and almost unconsciously, Armin weaves his footsteps around Jean’s to stay in the shade. A car zooms by, adding the scent of smoke to a neighbor’s freshly cut grass as well as something far more…illegal.

            “Hey guys!” yells Connie enthusiastically, a cloud of smoke flying away from his face. Armin cringes slightly with disgust.

            “Jean! Armin!” exclaims Sasha, sounding as thrilled as if she’d just won the lottery. She gets up from beside him, wavering slightly and squinting as if looking at them through a fog. Neither Armin nor anyone else in town knows how the two of them haven’t been taken in yet- they are possibly the loudest, most unsubtle drug dealers, or people, really, that you’ll ever meet, but there’s a certain amount of affection in people’s voices when they speak about Everyone’s Favorite Goofy Stoners.

            In their state, they probably wouldn’t notice if the two of them were riding horses, but Jean looks petrified nonetheless, as if someone seeing him _on the way_ to committing the act could blow his cover, and he seems to shrink backwards into the hoodie that it is really far too warm for.

            “Hi Connie and Sasha,” says Armin resignedly.

            “Ooh, Jean, nice socks!” says Sasha at three times her normal volume, her dirty flannel flapping out behind her. Jean is wearing flip-flops.

            “Th-thank you, Sasha…” says Jean in a choked voice. Armin’s not sure if it’s from the smoke or fear. He nudges him with his elbow and mutters,

            “Act normal. We’re going to have to see other people anyways.”  
            “Want some, guys?” asks Connie, waving a joint in their faces enticingly. “I am seeing some incredible shit right now, you’d love it, seriously!”

            Jean leans back and says, “No thanks, Connie. But I’m glad to hear you’re having fun.”

            As they’re walking away, Armin catches Jean throwing an endearing smile over his shoulder.

            “What?” he asks, catching Armin’s glance. “You know they’re like, totally in love with each other. Everyone agrees.”  
            Armin smiles. “Yeah, I know. We’re all just placing bets on when it’ll finally happen.”

            As the Colossal Comics is in pretty much the most conspicuous part of town, they’d ended up begging the manager, Mike, for a key to the back door about a month ago. Armin sticks it in the lock and lets them into the back room, and they’re greeted by the scent of piles and piles of thin paper books, colorful superheroes and aliens clashing together, their speech bubbles yelling at the boys from all sides of the room. Jean immediately goes over to the wobbling, three-foot high stack of back issues Mike saves for him and carefully plucks a few off the top to look through. Armin squats next to a metal cart of shelves and carefully slides the thin, smudged sketchbook from under a file box sitting on the bottom shelf.

            “Here,” he says, handing it to Jean, who pulls a couple pencils out of his jacket pocket and sits down in the singular, threadbare armchair the store possesses with all his stuff. He opens a comic book- Spiderman, from the looks of it- and turns to a clean page of the sketchbook before lowering his pencil to the page and beginning to draw.

********************           

_“Armin…can I tell you something?” Jean asked. They were sitting on the floor of his basement among exercise equipment (well actually, Jean was sitting, Armin was collapsed on the floor in a heap of exhaustion after yet another one of Jean’s attempts at whipping him into shape)._

There’s more than just the Marco thing? _Armin thought to himself._ How many secrets does this guy have?

_“Sure,” he said, still panting a little._

_There was a long moment of silence in which Armin began to think he’d lost his nerve and wasn’t actually going to tell him. Then-_

_“What would you think if I said I wanted to go to art school?” Jean asked. Armin turned his head to look at him in surprise. Jean wasn’t meeting his eyes and instead picked at a stray thread on his carpet, the tips of his ears bright red._

_“Well…” said Armin slowly. “First I’d be pretty surprised. Then I’d ask to see your profile and what schools you’re considering and maybe go over some of the pros and cons, you know, see what you’re aiming for in the tuition or acceptance rate_

_areas-”_

_He was cut off by a loud, relieved laugh from Jean. “Oh thank God. I knew I could tell you, Armin.”_

_Armin felt slightly warm inside. No one’s ever trusted him with their great big secret before, never mind two. “I mean, are you serious? Because you need to start now. Art school is competitive.”  
            “I’ve been practicing- drawing pretty much everything I see,” replied Jean. “But the only place I’ve been able to do it is my room, and I’m not interested in drawing shoes and desks. I want to do illustration- like, with people.”_

_“What do you mean, that’s the only place?” Armin asked. “Just go outside.”_  
            “What?!” demanded Jean, as if he’d just suggested he yell into a megaphone that he loved Taylor Swift. “No! Never! People would see me!”  
            “No they wouldn’t,” Armin replied. “I mean, the town is small, but it’s not like the entire football team walks by the park or whatever every ten minutes. And even if someone did see, you could tell them it was for school or something.”  
            Jean shook his head vehemently. “No. No, I can’t. Sorry, but I’m not doing that.”

_They lapsed into silence for a moment while Armin thought to himself. “Well, if you really want to do this, you have to start planning somehow.”_

_“Yeah,” muttered Jean. “I’ve got to go…plan. Ugh.”  
“Hang on a second, did you say illustration?” asked Armin suddenly, sitting up._

_“Yes…?”_

_A smile spread slowly over Armin’s face. “Ever been to the comic book store?”_

_**************_

Armin glances over to Jean, whose eyebrows are knit in concentration as his

head whips back and forth between the comic book and the sketchbook. Armin sighs. This is always the part where Jean goes deaf and blind to everything else around him, and he forgot to bring a book today. Quietly, he slips out into the main area of the store.

            Mike looks up from the register to offer him a friendly nod then goes back to counting out quarters. He’s the only one other than Armin and Marco who knows Jean’s secret (not the gay one, the art one). Armin had enlisted Marco in persuading Jean to tell at least one adult, and he’d finally settled on the one that barely ever talks.

            _Pretty smart, actually,_ Armin thinks, watching Mike somehow place quarters into the register without them even clinking together. He turns to a rack of Daredevil ultimate collections and picks one up to flip through absently, the sunlight coming in through the big store window warming his face and shooting around the poster-plastered walls, action-figure lined shelves, and racks of comic books and old-fashioned vinyl records.

            Suddenly there’s a jingle of the bell and two huge figures fill the doorframe. Armin quietly puts the book back on the rack and scurries away from where Reiner and Bertholdt appear not to have noticed him.

            The two of them are never mean to him, but he doesn’t know them very well, and normally Jean is there to act as his Jock Barrier. Not to mention that said Jock Buffer is currently pouring his heart into a sketchpad in the back room that would cause him to move to Australia were anyone to find out about, so he quickly takes up residence between two shelves of limited-edition DC posters near the door to the storage room so he can grab Jean and run should anything happen.

            “Practice starts tomorrow,” Reiner comments, grabbing an Archie collection off the shelf behind him and inspecting it.

            “Yeah,” says Bertholdt quietly. “Do you think there’ll be anyone new on the team? Annie says the new girl in town, the one who almost beat her at bowling, is trying out for soccer.”

            Reiner lets out a laugh. “So that’s why she sent me. For such a normally chill person, she’s kind of petty.”

            Bertholdt shrugs. “I guess so. But I think that girl is really bothering her- haven’t you noticed she’s been more on edge than normal when we pick her up from camp?”

            “Sort of, but I wouldn’t mention it. I think I’ve tried to talk feelings with her…three times maybe? Never ends well.”

            “Yeah,” Bertholdt sighs. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a straight answer out of her about _anything._ ”

Reiner puts the book slowly back on the shelf and frowns at the floor.

“Reiner? What’s wrong?”

Reiner turns to him. “You know she feels like shit about this? We can’t do a single thing without her having a breakdown afterwards.”  
      

      “Yes, I’ve been there for half of them, and I always feel awful about it. I just don’t understand _why,_ I mean she’s the one who-” Suddenly Reiner holds up a finger and peers around the corner to see Armin.

“Armin?”  
        

    Armin grabs frantically for a rolled-up poster and clutches it in his hand like a sword. “Reiner!” he yelps. “And, uh, Bertholdt.” He quickly rearranges the poster in his hands so it doesn’t look like he’s waiting to be attacked. “H-how are you?”

Reiner’s eyes narrow. “Pretty okay. You?”

“Fine,” says Armin, desperately trying to normalize his voice. “I just came in,” he adds, suddenly struck by inspiration. He points to the back room. “From there. Just now. The manager said I could go back there to look for something. I know the store pretty well,” he adds, slipping easily into the lie like a loose pair of shorts. He often frightens himself with how easily he lies, but considering the whole Jean Ordeal, it’s come in handy. “If you’re looking for something, I can help you find it.”  
            Both boys relax immediately. “Nah, we’re good,” replies Reiner. “Thanks for asking, though. We’ll see you soon. Hey, we’ve got a practice match against Survey on Saturday. You should come.”

“Sure, I’ll see if I can make it,” says Armin. Reiner and Bertholdt wave goodbye to him before hurriedly making their exit from the store. Armin walks slowly back to the storage room and closes the door behind him. Jean looks up from his sketchbook.

“Armin? What’s wrong?”

Armin shakes his head. He has the feeling he’s just witnessed something he really was not supposed to. “Nothing. I mean- nothing. When do you want to go?”

“Give me a second…” Jean mutters, rubbing his finger along a line. “Okay, we can leave now.”

“Can I see first?” Armin asks. Jean holds up the sketchbook for him to see- Spiderman is contorted in various positions. In one, the mask is melting off his face in thick, gooey drips, and in another, he’s holding up a perfectly detailed globe. Armin smiles. He hadn’t been sure at first what to expect when Jean said he drew, but he’s since found out that he’s actually very talented.

“They’re good. I like this one,” he adds, pointing to the mask one.

“Thanks,” Jean replies, giving him a smile. A real one, not the school-picture-day one he saves for most people. Armin feels another surge of warmth and sits down on the arm of the chair. “Can I see those ones of Marco again?” he asks.

Jean complies, flipping through the book with graphite-covered fingertips until he reaches a page covered in studies of Marco’s face from all angles. Smiling, crying, mouth open, mouth closed- in one he’s turned the freckles into stardust. Armin almost reaches out to touch them, but decides that probably wouldn’t be welcome.

They sit in silence for a moment, and Armin almost feels like he’s intruding when Jean brushes his fingertips gently over the sketches.

“Jean?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, sorry. We can go now,” says Jean quickly, clearing his throat and springing up from the chair. “I want a milkshake.”

***********************

            An incredibly loud Green Day song blares from the speaker of the car as Eren happily sings along and other drivers screech angrily out of the way of his terrible, reckless driving.

            “Television dreams of tomorrow, we’re not the ones who’re meant to follo-ow!” he sings happily.

            “Eren, could you slow down?” asks Armin loudly.

            “We’re almost there, I might as well pull up with a bang,” Eren replies. He doesn’t have to shout because the normal volume of his voice is plenty loud to drown out the car radio.

            “Coach Ackerman is going to be there, do you really want _him_ to see you driving like this?” asks Armin. At that, Eren slows down very suddenly. Armin lets out the breath he wasn’t aware he was holding and unfolds himself from the corner of the seat where he’s been curled up in fear.

            “Thanks,” he says. The green branches of trees brush the smooth lilac sky outside, seven o’clock finally being late enough for the sun to start setting again. Stores’ lights flicker on as they drive past, and groups of children start heading home, laughing and taking turns on each other’s bikes.

            “Why are we going to her tryouts again?” asks Armin. “I’m all for being a supportive friend, of course, but I think we both know she’s definitely going to make the team.”

            “Of course she will,” replies Eren. “But this is my opportunity to maybe talk to Coach Ackerman!”

            Armin rolls his eyes. “What do you think is going to happen, Eren?”

            “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out!” says Eren gleefully, a huge smile plastered on his face. Armin shakes his head and looks away.

            “There he is!” exclaims Eren excitedly as they pull up to the field.

            “He’s kind of short,” Armin mutters, getting out and slamming the door behind him.

            “Five feet and three inches of pure muscle!” he says happily.

            They walk over to the field and flop down in the grass on the sidelines, where Eren immediately begins tearing up grass and tossing it onto Armin’s head.

            Coach Ackerman blows the whistle and the two neat formations of girls wearing different colored jerseys on either side of the field dissolve as Annie Leonhardt takes control of the ball and brings it quickly up the sidelines towards the other goal, dodging the other girls so effortlessly she almost looks bored. That is, until she gets to Mikasa, who rather than coming at her from the side, meets her head on, the ball smashing against her feet as she pulls it away from Annie.

            “Yeah, Mikasa!” yells Eren, pumping his fists in the air. Armin shrinks back in embarrassment as a couple players look over in confusion and brushes the grass off his head.

            Mikasa begins to bring the ball up, but Armin can see that Annie is faster, even if only by a small margin. They meet again at almost the exact center of the field, and suddenly it’s like watching a tornado, and Armin isn’t sure who actually has the ball. They weave and dodge and seem to use their whole bodies rather than their feet as they battle it out for the ball, and all the other players can do is watch. Eventually, the ball gets kicked off field and another girl throws it in, but Armin can see Annie and Mikasa prowling around each other, even though they’re on opposite sides of the field. The rest of the match goes similarly- every time Annie gets the ball, Mikasa is there, and vice-versa. Forty-five minutes later, Eren is completely bored and still no one has made a goal. Suddenly Coach Ackerman blows the whistle again and Eren perks up excitedly.

            “Jaeger,” he says to Mikasa, striding out into the middle of the field. “I want you to swap with Anderson. Trade jerseys, you’re on the red team now.”

            Mikasa’s head flicks in the direction of Annie and then back again quickly. Her eyes narrow but she complies, taking the spot of left wing-forward with Annie to her right.

            “All right, fifteen minutes left in scrimmage!” yells Coach Ackerman, blowing his whistle and walking off the field towards the two boys. Eren’s eyes widen with excitement and he stares up at Coach Ackerman hopefully, who completely ignores him and squints into the lowering orange sun to see the players.

            Mikasa is given the ball, and she charges down the field without hesitation. However, the other players have by now figured out that she cannot be stopped by two or three people alone, and almost the entire team piles on her as she just barely fights them off. Armin leans forward to watch her, and he sees her eyes flash over to Annie’s. There’s a moment of aggravation and indecision in her eyes before she finally concedes and passes the ball to Annie, who, before anyone can even blink, makes the goal perfectly.

Coach Ackerman’s frown deepens and he writes something on his clipboard before looking back up again.

Annie gets passed to again quickly, and this time, it’s her eyes that hold the irritation and reluctance as she is attacked by the other players and passes the ball to Mikasa, who kicks the ball into the goal with such force that it goes through a hole in the net and the goalie has to run out to go get it.

“Go, Mikasa! Nice one!” yells Eren.

“You know her?” asks Coach Ackerman, looking down at the two of them. Eren straightens up.

“Yeah, she’s my sister!”

Armin suppresses another eye roll as Eren practically trips over himself telling Coach Ackerman this.

“Sister, huh? What’s her track record like with her old teams?” he asks.

“She’s been the captain of all of them pretty much since she started playing at, like, age seven.”

“She ever been kicked off a team?” asks Coach Ackerman, staring out at the field. “For bad sportsmanship or bad teamwork skills?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” replies Eren, caught completely off guard.

“Huh,” is all Coach Ackerman says. Armin bats away a swarm of bugs flitting sluggishly around his head as the coach blows the whistle and the girls jog off the field to let the boys on.

As soon as Coach Ackerman walks away to go talk to the boys, Eren turns to Armin with a delighted look on his face.

“Did you hear that? He needed me to tell him information about Mikasa. He _needed_ me! I’ll bet he’ll see me in school and recognize what I’m made of, then he’ll take me under his wing and teach me how to fight- like in the Karate Kid! Except he’s not nearly as old as Mr. Han.”

“Eren, you don’t even play soccer.”

“That’s true, but I do get in a lot of fights!”

Armin can’t really argue with that, so he turns his attention to the girls sipping out of water bottles on the hill. Annie sits down a little ways away from Mikasa, and Armin sees her head turn to glance at her. Mikasa looks up at her, their eyes meet, and both girls look away again quickly. Armin’s brow furrows.

“Armin? What’s wrong? You’ve got a weird look on your face,” says Eren.

“I think I may be developing gaydar,” mutters Armin.

“ _What?_ ”

“Never mind,” he says.

            “Thanks for coming,” says Mikasa, walking up to them. “I made the team,” she adds, unnecessarily.

            “Yeah cool, no problem. Did you see Coach Ackerman talking to me?” he asks excitedly, running down the hill. Mikasa and Armin follow at a slower pace as he babbles on.

            “Hey…can I ask you something Mikasa?” asks Armin hesitantly.

            “What?”  
            “Are you…” Armin struggles with his words. “…Straight?” Well, that isn’t normally how someone would phrase it, but he figures it’ll work.

            Mikasa looks at him in shock. “Wh- yes, of course I am! What do you mean, straight? I am not-“  
            “Okay, okay, I get it! I just thought you and Annie Leonhardt were kind of…” He struggles again.

            “Leonhardt? Absolutely not. I can’t stand her,” says Mikasa, looking straight ahead.

            “Okay, I’m sorry I asked,” says Armin, holding up his hands in surrender.

            “It’s all right. Is there any reason in particular you’re asking?”

            Armin thinks of Jean, Jean and Marco, he thinks of how afraid they both are, Jean in particular, now that school is starting and they can’t hide anymore. And how maybe they aren’t the only ones in this town who are hiding, and who are afraid.

            “No, no reason.”


	4. Denial Is Not Just A River In Egypt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mikannie-focused chapter. got nuthin to say except that the eye sex is getting i n t e n s e. if you're following the kumirei one it should update sometime this week :-)

“Eren, you already know everybody, so just calm down.”

            “I am calm!”

            “No you’re not. You’ve been biting your nails for ten minutes straight.”

            Eren quickly pulls his hand away from his mouth and stuffs it in his pocket. “I do that all the time, it doesn’t mean anything.”  
            Mikasa folds her arms. “It’s normal to be nervous about the first day of school, you know.”  
            “I am not nervous!”

            “Whatever,” mutters Mikasa, bending down to zip up her backpack.

            “Are you really gonna wear that?” asks Eren skeptically from behind her. She can feel his eyes scanning her critically, and she straightens up to turn to him defensively.

            “Yes, what’s wrong with it?” she asks, folding her arms again.

            “Aren’t you supposed to wear something special on the first day of school? You know, give a good first impression or whatever?”

            “What’s wrong with this?” she demands, letting her arms drop to her sides. She’s wearing a loose striped white shirt with dark red hems, high tops, and tattered black shorts she’s had for about three years now.

            “It’s not all that special.”

            “Are you saying that _is_?” she asks, nodding to his cargo shorts, some-band-she-doesn’t-know-shirt, and gray Vans.

            “I’m making the impression that I don’t care,” replies Eren haughtily.

            “Then so am I,” says Mikasa, picking her backpack up and slinging it over her shoulder. “Let’s go, we’re going to be late.”  
            The tiny parking lot is already packed to the brim when they arrive, although most of the cars are probably just there for show as pretty much everybody lives within walking distance of the school. Eren throws himself through the doors and Mikasa and Armin follow in his wake. People they hadn’t met over the summer turn to each other and whisper as they walk past. Eren apparently doesn’t notice, Mikasa ignores it completely and looks straight ahead with her nose in the air, but Armin seems to shrink into himself, casting his eyes to the ground and playing nervously with his hair.

            “Hey,” says Mikasa without looking over at him. Armin glances up. “Don’t worry. We’ll be here for you like we’ve always been. No one’s going to mess with you.”

            Armin looks slightly reassured and squares his shoulders a bit more as they walk to their classes. Still, it’s hard to pretend not to hear/mind when murmurs of, ‘Is that a boy or a girl?’; ‘The new boy’s kind of cute’; and ‘Damn, she’s a little scary-looking’ weave in and out of red locker vents, chase their heels over the tile floors, and get stuck between the old red bricks in the wall.

            “W-well- this is my class,” says Armin, sounding no less than one hundred per cent terrified. He stares up at the scuffed wooden door as if it’s a mobster pointing a gun into his face. Finally, _finally_ , Eren takes some notice of his surroundings and comes over to slap Armin on the back and say, “Remember the rules- don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t sit near the bad kids, and if worst comes to worst, yell for me or Mikasa or…“ He looks slightly constipated for a moment before finally spitting out, “ _Jean_ , if you really have to. The rooms are all super close together and these walls are thinner than- than-“

            “Paper,” Mikasa supplies tiredly.

            “Yeah, paper,” continues Eren. “You’ll be fine.”

            Armin doesn’t look convinced, but he nods, throws his shoulders back, and marches into the room. Mikasa and Eren stay staring at the door for a moment longer before someone says, “Hey you two, move it.”

            “He’ll be fine,” Eren says to Mikasa. Mikasa nods, but her stomach has that weird feeling you get when you eat a lot of rich chocolate in one sitting. “It’s a way smaller school, and he’s got that grade-A douchebag jock for a friend now, so-“

            “He’ll be fine. Go to class,” Mikasa fills in for him.

            Eren peels away from her to the classroom across the hall, and suddenly Mikasa is alone, a pebble stuck in the shallows that the current of students flows around like it’s nothing.

            _Homeroom,_ she reminds herself, and sets off again.

            She has Calculus with Jean and Marco, AP Chemistry with Eren and Mina, World History with Armin and Hitch, and English with-

            She grimaces as she surveys the room before her where of course, _of course,_ the only open seat is right the fuck beside Annie Leonhardt, who’s wearing black Nike high tops that are definitely originals and therefore must have cost upwards of a hundred dollars (honestly, who the fuck spends that much on  _shoes?_ ) that squeak over the floor in surprise when she sees Mikasa sit down in the seat next to her. She makes a tiny huffing noise but doesn’t make eye contact.

            That’s fine. Mikasa doesn’t want to see her blue jean eyes with any expression in them other than misery at her failure to win the title of captain.

            _Partner project._ The words still clouded with dust from the chalk barely register with Mikasa before the rest of the class has already bypassed the groaning stage and immediately grabbed their best friends. She turns, slowly, reluctantly. Blue jean eyes.

            “I suppose…we’re partners,” say the eyes. Mikasa nods curtly, then turns her attention abruptly to the teacher at the front of the class, who still hasn’t even explained the project.

            Catcher in the Rye. Of course. Because she hasn’t already read that for every single English class since ninth grade. They should really come up with some new curriculum every once in a while. Make a presentation on what you think the meaning of the book is and why. The teacher tries to speak over the grumbling of students who haven’t even read the damn book yet, assuring them that they’ve got two months and probably won’t even have to start on it until two weeks before it’s due, she’s just letting them know now. Please. Most of them won’t start until two  _hours_ before the thing is due.

            A breeze blows through the cracked-open window, stinging Mikasa’s eyes with chalk dust and ruffling lemon-cream locks into her line of vision. Blue jean eyes hidden.

            Fucking Catcher in the Rye.

**************

            Soccer practice starts at three o’clock sharp. Mikasa is there at two fifty-five. Unfortunately, so is Annie.

            Blue socks roll up over shiny plastic brand-name shin guards and long shiny brand-name legs. _They’re probably plastic too_ , Mikasa thinks, tugging on her own shin guards, which don’t have straps to keep them from sliding down her calves.

            At the beginning of practice, Coach Ackerman tells the team that they’ll be having a training camp over the upcoming long weekend, and at the end, there’ll be a vote for team captain. Mikasa doesn’t need to look at Annie to know that she’ll be standing up straighter, at attention. Hup, two, three, four. Yes Coach Ackerman, Sir! Why do sports teams always feel like armies?

            The weather is still disgustingly hot. Mikasa wonders vaguely where Eren and Armin are while they’re running laps. Probably drinking ice-cold smoothies, or eating snow cones, or ice cream…God it’s hot. Along that train of thought, she wonders if Armin did end up being as fine as she’d told him he was going to be. He’d seemed okay in World, but it’s hard to tell with someone whose eyes are perpetually the size of saucers.

            Practice drags on. Most of the other players are all right, but she knows they won’t be the ones to go out for captain. They’re already looking to her for direction during scrimmage- or at least, the ones on her side are. Annie’s group has, of course, gravitated towards her. She tells herself it means nothing that Annie’s not even captain of that side, but she’s the one giving positions out nonetheless.

            It’s another perfect tie between the sides, and Mikasa wonders if this should be taken as a sign of what's to come.

            At the end of practice, she can’t seem not to watch the way Annie flings herself into Reiner’s car- he arrives before Eren _again_ \- and for some reason, the motion of her legs, contracting, swinging, expanding again, sticks in Mikasa’s brain all night.

            “How was the first day of school?” asks their mother at dinner that night.

            “It was okay,” replies Eren, stabbing his chicken and holding it up like a spoil of war. “My chem teacher’s a nut.”

            “What do you mean, a nut?” asks their father, raising an eyebrow.

            “He’s right,” Mikasa chimes in. “The first thing they did was ask if anyone would be interested in receiving a little extra credit in exchange for being test subjects for an experiment they're doing off the books.”  
            “Then they dumped a jar of toads’ feet- actual toads’ feet- all over their desk and started showing us their favorite ones.”  
            Their father frowns. “Yeah, I heard they're actually quite the genius but doesn’t exactly belong in a school setting.”

            “They sound…special,” says their mother, a little bit of laughter creeping into the edges of her voice. “How about the others?”  
            “I didn’t even notice,” mutters Mikasa.

            “I have Coach Ackerman for English,” Eren announces happily. Their mother raises an eyebrow.

            “Oh? I didn’t know he actually taught,” she says, shaking salt over her food.

            “We’re doing A Tale of Two Cities,” he says, sounding proud for whatever reason.

            “Dickens. Sounds like he knows his stuff, at least,” comments their father dryly. Mikasa’s brow creases. They almost sound like they don’t approve of Coach Ackerman. Could it be for the reason he got kicked out of the league? But everyone knows that.

            “Yeah,” replies Eren, oblivious to their parents' less-than-complimentary attitudes towards the teacher. “So I need ten bucks for a copy.”

            Their father snorts. “Ten dollars? You can get a used one for half that price.”

            Mikasa’s frown deepens. This is totally not like them.

            “Mr. Ackerman says we need ten dollars,” Eren repeats firmly. With this, they finish the meal in silence.

************

            “How was Armin today?” asks Mikasa from the floor where she’s playing absent-mindedly with a three hundred piece jigsaw puzzle. On the other side of the basement, Eren is attempting to play a game of air hockey with himself, his Vans ruffling the fabric of the carpet as he darts back and forth across the table, trying to simultaneously keep the puck out and get it into both goals. This makes so little sense that Mikasa has elected to just leave him to it, but now she wonders who’s winning- Eren or Eren. Maybe that’s the point.

            “Same as usual, actually. I asked if anyone picked on him and he said no, but you know he lies about that shit sometimes,” says Eren, letting in- no, scoring- a goal on the left. “I asked him if he wanted to go to Shake Shack after school but he said he had to go watch Kirchstein’s practice.”

            Surprised, Mikasa accidentally jams a puzzle piece in the wrong way. “What? Why?”

            “That’s what _I_ asked,” says Eren, interrupting himself to curse when he lets another goal in. “He said they were hanging out afterwards, but normally he takes the first day of school to read the first two chapters of all his new textbooks.”

            Mikasa shakes her head. “It feels like he’s got a lot of secrets these days.”

            “I saw him talking to Annie in Government. Think he’s got a thing for her?”

            Mikasa stiffens at Annie’s name. “Just because two people talk to each other doesn’t mean they’re screwing, Eren.”

            “Oh right, is that why _you_ refuse to talk to her?” he teases.

            “No!” she snaps. “First Armin, now you. Why do you guys think I’m dying to sleep with Leonhardt?”

            Eren looks taken aback, and the puck slides neatly into the slot on the right side of the table. It echoes in the sudden silence that has filled the room. “I was just joking.”

            She realizes that her voice was too defensive and tries to pick the puzzle piece out of its place calmly. “Yeah. I know you were. Sorry.”

            Eren looks confused, but as usual, his expression evens out and he goes back to his game against himself. “Whatever. You’re being weird.”

            “You’re the one playing air hockey against yourself,” she says under her breath just as the score counter starts beeping and Eren lets out a whoop.

            “I won!” he says, pumping his fist in the air.

            “I thought you lost?” points out Mikasa. Eren opens his mouth, then closes it again.

            “I-“

            Mikasa rolls her eyes. She’d better get this scholarship- that boy is never going to college otherwise.

**************

            Outside under the cool velvet sky, lemon-cream hair fans out behind Annie’s head as her skateboard rattles down the street. She pauses when she gets to the Jaegers’ house and flips it up so she’s holding it, the spray-painted bottom facing the glowing windows, one of which has to hold Mikasa. Why did she even come this way? She has literally no business here. Her phone buzzes in her back pocket. She doesn’t have to check it to know it’s Reiner, reminding her where she’s actually supposed to be right now. She shakes her head and skates off again. But those windows burn little yellow squares into her back as she goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wait i do have something to say: *ahem*- eren is a walking shitpost in this fanfic


	5. A Provincial Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its levihan and its late I'm so sry. this fic is literally just a massive shitstorm I'm using as a venting space for every single one of my snk ships and id like to apologize for that. anyway enjoy ~

Levi’s movements are careful, practiced, machine-like. But they’re not unconscious- he feels the weight of the cereal box in his hand, the toothbrush bristles on his teeth, the thin plastic of the pair of reading glasses his places in his pocket. He’s had the same routine every day since he came to Trost, but he’s never had any desire to change it.

            Tea is hot in his stomach as he climbs into his car and starts the engine. This part still feels, and will always feel, strange. Getting in his car to go to work. No one in their right minds ever called soccer “work”, and his ride to practice in the fancy car never felt like anything other than a little fun he decided to have on the way. He was a celebrity, an exception to every rule, someone the world happily draped in metaphorical velvet and arranged on a stage to ooh and ah and throw roses at. Now he’s a conformist. A nine-to-five worker, someone who puts on a button-down shirt in one of three thousand shades of blue, someone who brings a thermos in his car, someone who wears glasses instead of contacts. A teacher.

            He tries not to be bitter- honest to God, he does. But it’s long since come to his attention that he’s sort of a bitter person, and he’s beginning to think his eyes are just set that way, because people move out of his way when they see him coming.

            He walks into the building, adjusting his satchel over his shoulder, when right on cue, Hange comes running up to him, the same old wild look of excitement in their eyes as every single day.

            “Levi! Just the guy I was hoping to see!” they exclaim happily.

            “You’ve been saying that every day for four years now,” Levi tells them, just as he has every day for four years now.

            “So guess what?” they say excitedly, bouncing a little on their heels and weaving around Levi as he walks in his perfectly straight line towards his classroom. “Guess what guess what guess what?”

            “You got an economy-sized jar of rare platypus shit in the mail from your secret admirer,” he says sarcastically.

            “The Sina Cancer Research Center agreed to meet with me!” they say, the words sounding like violins as they explode out of their mouth in excitement.

Levi fights a smile and says, “Finally. I guess they’re not total idiots.” He’s genuinely happy for them- he knows it was never their dream to become a high school science teacher, but it’s what they’d had to settle for when their dad got sick and they had to drop out of college to take care of him instead of going on to receive their PhD. Because of this, it was hard to get people to pay attention to them, and SCRC is a big-ass deal as far as cancer research facilities go.

“I have so much prepared, Levi!” they say, hands clenched in front of their chest, an overjoyed look in their eyes. “But I’ve got to get it all in order by November. Hey!” they exclaims excitedly, turning to him. “D’you think maybe you can help me?”

“Help you?” asks Levi incredulously. “What the hell do you want me to help you with? You know I don’t know a damn thing about science.”

“That may be true, but you do know a lot about organizing and keeping things in order!” says Hange. Levi wonders if it’s bad that he takes this as a compliment.

“No,” he says flatly, speeding up.

“Aw, Levi! Why not?” pouts Hange, running after him.

“I don’t have time for that.”

“It wouldn’t take that long!” they protest. “All I need is for you to keep track of the papers and make sure I don’t lose anything.”

“So your unpaid secretary, basically.”

Hange pauses and shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“No.”

“But-“

“I said no! Go the fuck away!”

“Okay…”

But God forbid that be the end of it. No, they come back the next day with the same request, with that little wobbling lower lip- but Levi wasn’t once called the Nation’s Strongest for nothing, and he holds strong. But they just keep asking, over and over, and just because he now takes a different door into school now it doesn’t mean he’s avoiding old Shitty Glasses.

“Le-vi!” a voice sings from his door.

“Agh!” Levi yells. “Stop harassing me! I said no, and that means no!”

Hange flops into a desk and stares at him. After a few minutes of such creepy silence, Levi says, “Either say something or get out!”

“Why won’t you help me?” Hange whines.

“Because I don’t feel like it,” he answers curtly. Right on cue, the bell rings. “Oh, would you look at that, it’s time to for you to get the fuck out and leave me alone. Hop to it.”

The next day, Levi skids into class two minutes before the bell rings. There is absolutely no way Hange can speak to him today, right? Wrong. Ambushed as he walks out the door at lunch.

“Levi, come _on,_ it won’t be that hard! You love cleaning stuff up anyways. Pleeease?”

“Hange,” says Levi very quietly. “If you do not leave _right now_ I will punch you in the face so hard that your shitty glasses break.”

“Okay…” Hange grumps and slinks away.

The school is completely silent- everyone else has gone home, but Levi has stayed longer to…grade some papers. Not to avoid seeing anyone. Just grading shit. He stacks his papers neatly and puts them down on his desk, then grabs his stuff and heads out the door.

“Levi!”

“FUCK!” he yells, dropping everything and holding his fists up instinctively. It’s Hange. “Oh,” he says, lowering his fists. “It’s you. Don’t fucking do that.”

“Sorry, I just knew you’d be staying a little late today, and I wanted to know if I could buy you coffee!” they say sweetly, bending down to hand Levi his stuff.

Levi snatches it out of their grip. “You can’t bribe me with fucking coffee, Hange.”  
            “Le-viiiii, come on! It wouldn’t be that hard for you! I don’t know why you’re being like this!” they say desperately, sweet façade dropping away.

The truth is, Levi isn’t really sure either. He supposes he’s been in the habit of turning people away for so long that breaking it now would just be weird. “Look, I just…”

            They’re making that pouty face again, the one where their eyes get really big behind their glasses and their nose wrinkles up and their lower lip gets all pushed out and pathetic.

            Levi groans and rubs at his forehead. “If I say I’ll help you, will you stop bothering me?”

            Immediately Hange’s pout lifts, and like storm clouds making way for the sun, their smile comes through- not their creepy one when they’re talking about caveman toenail clippings, or the rather horrifyingly victorious one when they’ve finally gotten their experiment right, but the one where their dimples dig deep into their cheeks and their eyes turn into squinty half-moons with sparkly little stars dancing in them.

            “Yes!” they shout loudly, pumping their fists in front of them. “Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! You mean you’ll really help me? Oh, thank you so much, Levi! I knew you would!” they shriek, dancing around a little. Suddenly they throw their arms around Levi, who makes a muffled grunting noise of surprise, and squeeze his shoulders so tightly he feels like they’re about to dislocate. Then just as suddenly, Hange’s gone again, prancing off down the hall like the idiot they are, singing over their shoulder at him, “Meet me in my office tomorrow morning and we can get started!”

            Levi stares after them slack-jawed, the feeling of their arms still warm on his own, then quickly gathers himself up enough to shout after them, “I’m not coming any earlier than six thirty!”

“That’s okay!” they cry cheerfully.

Levi scowls to himself then turns decisively on his heel and walks out to the parking lot. He gets in his car and stares blankly at the dashboard for a moment, the setting sun glaring in his eyes. “Shit,” he mutters, turning the ignition and driving off.

He still has sort of a warm feeling when he gets out of the car in front of his house, but it dissipates immediately when he hears a soft “ahem” from behind him as he’s putting his key in the door.

He turns around slowly. Polished black shoes; an expensive navy suit tailored perfectly over a tall, fit body; a jawline that could cut glass, million-dollar blue eyes, and neatly parted blonde hair.

With no hesitation whatsoever, Levi punches Erwin Smith in the face.

****************

“Sorry,” he mutters, handing Erwin a wet washcloth.

“That’s all right,” replies Erwin, taking it from him and pressing it over his right cheek. Despite the greeting, he’s managed to bring that calm, gracious air he always has about him into the house, blowing in behind his sturdy heels like a cold front. “I realize that we didn’t exactly leave things on the best terms, so I was prepared for some unfriendliness on your end… just not quite _that_ much.”

Levi tosses him some antiseptic then leans against his kitchen counter, folding his arms. “Why are you here, Smith?”

Erwin raises his eyebrows. “Are we really back on last-name terms again?”

Levi doesn’t respond.

Erwin sighs. “Fine. I don’t know what I expected. The reason I’m here-“ he pauses to dab some antiseptic on his face with a cotton ball, wincing. “-is that I’ve been asked to help Nanaba with scouting for next year.”

Levi scowls at the manager’s name. “I didn’t mean why you’re in Trost, I meant why you were at my house. Are at my house. Get the fuck out.”

“Levi, can we just talk for a few minutes?” Erwin begs.

“No!” yells Levi. “No the fuck we can’t! Don’t you remember? That’s how all that shit started! Levi, I need to speak to you in my office for a few minutes,” Levi mocks in a snobby accent. “What do you need, Coach?” he says in a voice slightly higher than his own. “I just wanted to tell you how much I value you as not only a player, but a-“  
            “Yes, I remember, please stop,” says Erwin crossly, putting down the antiseptic.

“-Person,” Levi plows right on. “I wanted to show my appreciation by taking you out to dinner. Gee, thanks Coach! That’s awful nice of you! Little did I know you wanted to-“

“-Levi-“  
            “FUCK ME!”  
            “LEVI!”  
            There’s a silence, marked only by the dripping of the sink tap. Levi has one foot forward and his fists clenched, his lips pulled in an ugly sneer, and Erwin is leaning forward in his chair, a furious look on his face. He sighs and sits back, closing his eyes for a moment.

“You know that’s not how it happened, Levi,” he says quietly, opening them again. The fight gushes out of Levi and he slumps back against the counter. He does know that’s not how it happened, but he doesn’t like to think about how it really happened, because how it really happened was totally respectable. There was nothing wrong or abusive about it whatsoever. He’d known Erwin was asking him out on a date. They’d been casually flirting for days, and Levi wasn’t so blind that he couldn’t tell when a guy ‘played for the other team’ or when said guy was into him. He was the one who’d suggested they go to Erwin’s place after dinner the third time. He and Erwin were both equally at fault. Fault. Ha. As if they were doing anything wrong. Erwin was an amazing coach- it was the only reason he hadn’t been expelled, too- and everyone knew he would never, _ever_ show favor to _anyone._ Nanaba had to pick one of them to throw out, and even though he was their best player, Levi already had that business with the gangs. The decision was easy, really.

“Why are you here, Erwin,” Levi repeats tiredly.

“I wanted to see you,” Erwin answers earnestly. “And apologize. Hopefully change your last impression of me.”

“So this is the last time you’ll ever speak to me again, right?” asks Levi harshly. “It had better be, because it’s already one too many.”

“Can you please just let me talk?” asks Erwin desperately. “I’m sorry. I’m the coach. It’s my job to look out for the players and not form emotional attachments. I was completely at fault, and I knew the league’s attitude towards the…LGBT community as it stands. And you ended up taking the hit. I haven’t stopped thinking about it for years. Every day, I wake up, and it hits me- I ruined you life, and-“

“What makes you think you ruined my life?” interrupts Levi. “Just because I’m not running around primping myself for the cameras in a car that could feed a third-world country for a month doesn’t mean I’ve got nothing left. I have a job and plenty of money.”

“I know, I know, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your life now,” says Erwin quickly. “But there’s no escaping the fact that I caused you serious embarrassment and loss of your job, and I wanted to know if there’s anything- _anything_ at all- that I can do to make up for it.”

“No,” says Levi curtly, walking over to gather up the first aid stuff and bring it back to the cupboard. “I don’t want any favors from you. Not now, not ever.”

“Levi, please just let me do something-“

“Don’t you get it?” Levi snarls, whipping around. “I don’t want to be around you at all! I don’t want you back in my life! I never want to see you again as long as I live! How’s that for a favor?” His voice rings in the empty kitchen, and he can see the hurt in Erwin’s eyes.

There’s another silence. Then Erwin gets up. “All right,” he says quietly. “If that’s what you really want. But if you ever need anything, let me know. The offer will always stand.”

“I won’t,” mutters Levi, slamming the cupboard door shut. He follows Erwin to the door to lock it behind him, and when they get there, Erwin turns to him again.

“Just so you know, we probably will run into each other a few more times. I’ll be in town for a little while, and I’ll be making regular visits to reexamine the players.”

“Whatever,” says Levi, squeezing the doorknob in his hand.

“Good-bye, Levi,” says Erwin, yet somehow his tone is anything but final. Levi catches one last glance just before he shuts the door- his eyes are filled with hurt and misery and regret, and all sorts of other unpleasant things. Then he’s gone, and Levi is left staring at the blank wooden door. He walks to the window and watches from the window as Erwin gets into his Cadillac and drives away, then makes his way slowly back upstairs, sheds his clothes, and climbs into the bathtub. He’s silent for a moment while he watches the water creep up his legs and lets everything build up in his throat. Then he lets it all out in on long, loud scream.


	6. Training Camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeaaaaaah so im shit at updating. sorry guys. tw for abusive-ish parents. mikannie- also i don't use my tumblr anymore so if you're trying to find me there sry :/ please leave comments bc it is all i hope for in life

“Bye, Dad,” says Annie, unlocking her front door.

“Bye? What do you mean, bye? Where are you going?” he demands, squinting at the early morning light pouring through the door.

Annie falters. “Training camp? For- for soccer? I told you last week, remember?”

“Oh,” her father frowns. “Well how are you getting there?”

“Reiner’s driving me to school, and the bus is going to take us from there,” she says, adjusting her backpack straps defensively.

“Reiner?” her father barks. “Why are you always driving around with that boy? There’s not anything going on, is there?”

“No,” she replies flatly, then under her breath, “Maybe if _you’d_ take me places every once in a while I wouldn’t have to.”

“What was that?” her father snaps. With a hideous creaking of leather, he leans forward in his old recliner to get up, his sunken gray face standing out in unpleasant detail in the light.

“Nothing! See you on Sunday,” she says quickly, flinging herself through the door before he can catch up. “Go, go,” she says to Reiner the minute she climbs into the car. Reiner doesn’t need to hear anything else before peeling out of her street.

************

Coach Ackerman takes role while the players stand in two stiff lines next to the bus, girls on the left and boys on the right.

“Looks like everyone’s here. Before we leave, all of you go to the bathroom. I don’t care how old you are, it’s a three-hour trip and I’m not having any of you brats stopping us, or-“ a thunderous, warning look appears on his face. “-having an _accident._ ”

The students flood into the building, chattering sleepily and rubbing the last dregs of sleep from their eyes. By the time Annie gets there, there’s a line stretching out the girls’ room. At the end of it, closest to her, is Mikasa Jaeger.

Annie doesn’t say anything but gets in line behind her. Of course, this means they’re the last two out and the last two on the bus. One seat. Two per seat. Two of them. She resists the urge to look at Mikasa’s face, because she knows Mikasa won’t be looking at her. Instead, she leads the way- at least that’s how it feels- and slides in next to the window. Mikasa sits down gingerly next to her, careful to leave a good five inches between them, and pulls out her phone. Annie does the same, and they spend the next few minutes before the bus starts like that, carefully not looking at each other. Annie subconsciously swings her legs back and forth over the lip of the cracked plastic seat. Mikasa looks up.

“Sorry,” Annie mutters, stilling her legs as the bus rumbles to life.

“It’s fine,” says Mikasa, looking up at her. Their eyes meet for the first time that day. Annie could’ve sworn Mikasa’s eyes were normally a stormy gray, but in this light they were sort of golden-brown. “You just didn’t strike me as someone- I mean…my brother does that too.”

“Eren, right?” Annie asks, then mentally curses herself for making it look like she knew something about Mikasa, like she cared.

“Yeah,” Mikasa answers, looking surprised.

“The one who’s always yelling and getting into fights.” It slips out before Annie can catch herself. Mikasa looks offended. Shit. She always does this, lets out some rude or offensive thought she should really have just kept to herself. “I don’t mean it’s a bad thing,” she backpedals frantically, trying to reconcile the situation. Why is she trying to do that? She doesn’t care. It’s Mikasa. They hate each other. It’s hate. Hate at first sight. True hate. Hate without barriers. “It’s just what people notice about him first-off, I think.”

To her surprise, Mikasa’s eyes soften. “That’s probably true. He’s always been like that.” The corners of her mouth life in a tiny, amused smile. “Every single school counselor we’ve ever had has recommended he play ice hockey for anger management.” Her eyes narrow in confusion and irritation, but not at Annie- almost at herself.

Annie suppresses a snort of laughter and quickly looks away. There’s an awkward pause in conversation at this, and Annie abruptly fills it with, “I swing my legs back and forth because they’re too short to put on the floor.” What the fuck. Why did she say that. Great. Just great. She’s given her ammunition- aw, poor little Annie, too short to touch the floor, do we really want a midget as captain?

“I think Eren just does it because he doesn’t like sitting still,” says Mikasa without missing a beat or acting like she’s said something strange.

“I guess it’s what happens when part of you is still a little kid,” says Annie. Another smile, at least a centimeter wider this time.

“That sounds right.”

The conversation dies again, but this time, Annie refuses to start it back up. Nothing wrong with some friendly chatter before she destroys her in the vote for captain. But there’s a limit, and she’s officially reached it. She shouldn’t be talking _nicely_ to Mikasa. God forgive her for _enjoying_ it.

 _Yeah, that’s definitely enough of that,_ she thinks, putting her earbuds.

They finish the rest of the ride in silence, but, Annie remains hyper aware of Mikasa’s presence next to her the entire time.

************

The training camp is in the same place as always- a great big Astroturf lawn with a couple of those white domes plonked in the middle- but with a sudden influx of funding for the soccer team that most likely had something to do with Coach Ackerman, this year they were actually staying in a motel as opposed to the large abandoned warehouse where the schools with lesser coaches slept on the ground in sleeping bags.

Coach Ackerman began to read off the names of the boys and which rooms they were sleeping in, and then the girls.

“Jackson and Arbury, room 436. McMansing and Brown, room 437. Leonhardt and Jaeger,” he says, looking Annie straight in the eye. “Room 438.”

Annie wants to punch him in the face. Mikasa makes a slightly choked noise next to her, and Annie looks down to see her hands clenching and unclenching. _I could do it,_ Annie thinks. _He’s only like three inches taller than me. I could punch him in his stupid fucking face and it would leave a mark. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna-_

“That’s it,” says Coach Ackerman, looking up from his clipboard. “You have twenty minutes to get settled and changed. Then I want you out at Field 6, in your separate lines, ready to go. Hop to it.”

Annie trails behind Mikasa on the way to their room, sending telepathic obscenities and glaring at the back of the taller girl’s head.

“Is it okay with you if I take this bed?” Mikasa asks stiffly, all remnants of friendliness from the bus ride gone.

“Sure,” Annie replies in an equally stiff tone, dumping her bag on the bed and rummaging through it for her clothes. There’s an intensely awkward moment where they both try to go into the bathroom at once, and then both try to leave simultaneously.

“I’ll change out here,” says Mikasa, gesturing to the room. Annie nods and closes the bathroom door behind her. She changes quickly, and immediately opens the door to leave. Big mistake. Apparently Mikasa doesn’t dress quite as quickly as her, because when she barges right back into the room like some fucking lunatic, she’s not wearing shorts.

“Shit! Sorry,” she says hurriedly, trying to back into the bathroom again. She can feel her cheeks turning bright red and for some reason she can’t stop looking.

“It’s fine,” mutters Mikasa, who’d frozen when she entered the room but now quickly pulls on her shorts. She makes an awkward coughing noise and says quietly, “Um, I’m gonna go now. See you out there.”

“Yeah, okay,” mutters Annie, slipping out of the bathroom door and grabbing a water bottle. She waits until twenty seconds after Mikasa’s left before going out the same way, mentally beating herself up the entire time.

 _Idiot! What the fuck! You should’ve asked if it was okay to come out! Well maybe_ she _should learn to change faster. Just taking her time like that, the coach only gave us twenty minutes. It’s definitely her fault- no it’s not, it’s mine. And I have to sleep with her tonight. Shit, no, not like that. Why am I even getting this worked up? She’s another girl, I’ve seen all that before. Well, I don’t have underwear like that. And my legs aren’t nearly that nice._

What the hell was that. Annie feels the sudden, acute urge to throw up and pushes everything out of her mind. Whatever problem it is she’s having right now, she doesn’t have time for it. She needs to focus on her playing and leadership- they’re picking captain at the end of the trip, and she has to look good. Better than Mikasa. Although, now that she knows what Mikasa looks like, that might be hard. Fuck. What is her _problem_ today?

They spend the entire day from nine thirty in the morning to six in the evening playing soccer with an hour break for lunch. Annie isn’t a friendly person by nature, but she feels fairly confident that she was nice enough to her teammates that day. It was the only part she’d really have trouble with- captains needed to have emotional connections to their teams, and she tends to detach herself from almost everyone.

 _That’s not enough,_ a voice tells her in the back of her head. _Yes it is,_ she argues. _No, it’s not. Look at Mikasa. She’s going to win if you don’t do more. But I’ve been here longer. You’ve never been friendly with anyone you don’t have to be. You have to do more._

Annie scowls and marches over to the crowded tables of the mess hall, where Mikasa is talking to a couple girls with a bored expression. But she’s talking nonetheless. Great. Annie _hates_ talking to people. But here she goes.

“Hey, it’s Hannah, right?” she asks, sitting down next to a girl with red hair and a pale, freckled face.

“Oh, yeah, it is!” she says cheerfully, putting down her cup. Annie groans internally. Great, a cheerful, outgoing one. She hates those people. “Annie, right? You’re a really good player.”

“Thanks,” she says, hoping that she’ll sound more upbeat by raising her voice an octave. “I’ve had a lot of practice. How about you? How long have you been playing?”

“Oh, well, I’d have to say it started in fifth grade when my older brother decided _he_ wanted to play, and then of course I _had_ to play, I have five brothers, you know? That kind of thing really gets to you, and when my dog died…”

Thus follows the singular most painful conversation Annie has ever held with someone- or perhaps she just doesn’t talk to people enough to have had worse ones. Yeah, that’s probably it. But if they’re all like this, all the more reason to never talk to people, ever again. Ever, she thinks, squeezing her wet hair out in the sink and pulling on a clean shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in.

“I’m done,” she says, stepping out of the bathroom. Mikasa gets up from her bed with her stuff and shuts the door behind her. A minute later, the sound of water running fills the room. Annie glances to Mikasa’s abandoned bed, where a bunch of papers are spread over it with her handwriting on it. She has really nice handwriting- it’s sort of small and curly, and all the letters are the same size. She pulls out her own homework to get started on. Mikasa comes out a while later, and they spend the next few hours not talking, not looking at each other, and probably more focused on their homework than they’ve ever been in their lives. Unfortunately, their diligence as well as the fact that it’s the first week back and the teachers won’t really be laying in the heavy work for a while means that they finish with still two hours to go till lights out.

Annie pulls out her phone, figuring she can just mess around on Instagram to make it look like she’s doing something.

“Hey, Annie…” Annie’s head jerks up. Mikasa isn’t looking at her, her eyes lowered determinedly to the mattress. “I…need a favor.”

“What is it?” she asks, her voice a mixture of hostile and apprehensive.

Mikasa’s fingers play with one of the little charms on her dark green backpack, and finally she asks, in a voice that sounds like she might as well be cutting off her own fingers with a pair of safety scissors, “During warm-ups, you did some sort of scissor kick I’ve never seen before. Could you, um, _please_ teach it to me?”

“Wow, is it really that painful for you to ask me for a favor?” asks Annie, surprising herself. Crap. Probably shouldn’t have said that. Well, she might as well dig herself in deeper now that she’s gone this far. “I mean you sound like you’re constipated.”

Mikasa scowls. “The hell’s your problem? I just asked you for something. I said _please._ ”

“Oh wow, you said please,” says Annie sarcastically. “And what do you mean, _my_ problem? You’ve been hostile towards me from the very start.”

“So have _you_ ,” says Mikasa angrily.

“Look, I can tell you want to be captain, and so do I, but there’s no reason for us to hate each other for it,” she says irritably.

Mikasa looks positively thunderous. Her jaw works furiously, and finally she says coldly, “Well, maybe you should start with yourself. Why do you want to be captain, anyway? So you can ride through college easy? There are people who actually need that scholarship.”

“Yes, it’s for the scholarship, so that when I’m done college I’ll have enough money left over to find my mother, wherever the fuck she went!” Annie exclaims furiously, then throws her hand over her mouth. There’s silence in the room, punctuated only by shouts and laughter from down the hall. _Oh my God, why did I just tell her that?_ she thinks, horrified. _I’ve only ever told Reiner and Bertoldt what I’m going to do, and I just throw it out in some argument now?_

Mikasa’s eyes are wide with shock, and Annie cringes as she opens her mouth to respond. “Why…did your mother leave?” she asks hesitantly.

Surprised, Annie lowers her hand and replies uncertainly, “M-my dad. At least, I think. I was like ten, so some of the details are mixed up. But I’m pretty sure that’s why.”

Mikasa hesitates again for a moment, then says, “What was he doing?’

“Nothing really abusive, but he was just…apathetic, I guess. He inherited a lot of money about three years into their marriage when his rich uncle died, so he didn’t really need to work anymore. He just kind of…stopped doing anything. Quit his job, stopped paying attention to us. He was hardly ever at home, and when he was, he was usually drinking, and normally that would just make him more bitchy than usual, but sometimes it made him angry.” She gauges Mikasa’s reaction to see if she should keep going, but the other girl’s expression is unreadable. “Anyway, my mom couldn’t take it anymore, so she just left. No idea where she went, and my dad won’t tell me.”

“Is he abusive towards you?” Mikasa asks quietly.

“Not that much- mostly he’s just a terrible father,” Annie laughs bitterly. “You can’t really call child services over that.”

Mikasa is silent for a moment, then gets up and moves to sit down on the edge of Annie’s bed. Her wet hair drips a little on the covers, and Annie can count three tiny freckles on her left temple. “Well- I guess you have a right to want the captain position too, then. I’m assuming your dad doesn’t know what you’re planning?”

Annie shakes her head violently. “He’d definitely flip out. After she left, I remember him being really sad for about a month, but eventually he decided that she was just disloyal and her leaving was unjustified. I think he hates her now.”

“You’ll find her,” says Mikasa suddenly.

“Huh?”  
            “Your mom. You’ll find her. I can tell. You’ll do it.”

Annie feels something sort of strange and different inside of her, and then she feels it- her mouth turning up- she’s smiling. No one’s ever told her they believe in her with such certainty before, and Mikasa barely knows her. It feels weird, like she’s using a whole different set of muscles she’s never tried out before. Someone made her smile. Mikasa made her smile.

Mikasa’s eyes soften, and she smiles a little too.

“Why do _you_ want to be captain?” Annie asks eventually.

“Oh- well, my family doesn’t have a ton of money, and they have to send both me and my brother to college. My brother doesn’t really have any particular skills that could get him a scholarship other than music, but he says he doesn’t want to exploit his art for a school administration, or something like that. So I figure if I get a scholarship, my parents can put most of the money towards his education.”

“That’s a pretty good reason,” Annie admits. “You and your brother are really close, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I get the feeling it’s not really that way between most siblings,” says Mikasa. “He’s my closest friend, but I also feel sort of- I don’t know, motherly towards him.”  
            “Are you a cancer?” Annie asks.

Mikasa frowns. “A what?”

“You know, like the Zodiac sign?”

Mikasa looks amused. “You’re into all that?”

“I mean, most of it’s pretty stupid, but it’s cool when someone’s personality actually matches with their sign. It’s like the universe saying, hey, there’s actually something of a pattern around here. Sometimes the world feels like someone’s school project they fucked up really bad and just abandoned halfway through, so when things balance out even a little, it’s nice.”

“I like that,” Mikasa muses. “A fucked up school project. I wonder what grade we would’ve gotten if the guy had turned it in.”

“Probably, like, a C minus. Not bad enough to have failed, but it would definitely have some of those notes in the margin, like, _not specific enough,_ or, _weak supporting arguments._ ”

Mikasa bursts out laughing, and Annie gets that weird feeling and finds herself smiling again. Her face feels warm. She made someone laugh- someone thinks she’s funny.

“Or maybe, like, a shoebox diorama put together with scotch tape and nothing else,” Mikasa says through her laughter.

“And the little Play-Doh people are all just sort of stuffed in there,” says Annie, grinning, which is starting to feel more natural now.

They talk for another hour, until the coach shouts into the hallway, “Lights out! If I find anyone up in fifteen more minutes, consider yourself benched for the rest of the season!”

Mikasa goes back to her own bed and turns out the light. “Good night,” she says softly.

“’Night,” Annie murmurs back.

It’s completely dark. Annie’s just slipping into sleep, her body all foggy and warm, when she hears something that wakes her right up again.

“You look really pretty when you smile,” comes Mikasa’s voice, muffled and sleepy.

 _Is she sleep-talking?_ Annie wonders, her heart thumping. Mikasa doesn’t say anything else.

_You look really pretty. Smile. Smile. Pretty smile. Pretty._

_Mikasa._

_************_

Monday is Labor Day, and the last day of training camp. At five o’clock pm, just before they’re to get on the buses to go home, Coach Ackerman calls for a lineup of the teams. They file up along the green edges of the field, backs straight and attentive.

“If you’ll recall, I said at the beginning of the week that this would be the day we’d pick the captains today. Here are the candidates for the boys’ captains-“

He proceeds to read out a list of names. All the boys sit down, cover their eyes, and take the vote. Jackson wins by a long shot.

“Now for the girls,” says Coach Ackerman, turning to their line. “The nominees are: Annie Leonhardt and Mikasa Jaeger.”

Annie feels Mikasa tense up beside her, and her heart sinks. She’d hoped there would at least be a couple other nominees besides them so it wouldn’t be such an obvious competition between the two of them.

“Heads down,” says Coach Ackerman. Annie puts her head slowly down to her lap and closes her eyes.

“Remember, you may only vote once,” he says. “Those in favor of Mikasa, raise your hands.”

Annie thinks of how she cares so much about her brother, how she’d probably care for the team just that much. How she’d instantly believed in Annie and told her she could find her mother, without a doubt, how Annie had felt full of confidence when she’d said so. How a soccer team needs exactly that kind of determination and confidence. Slowly, she lifts her hand to the sky. _What am I doing?_ she thinks. _Great, I don’t think I’m the best candidate for the position. How can I ask anyone else to think so?_

“Those in favor Annie, raise your hands.”

There’s a moment of tense silence, then he says, “All right, pick your heads up.”

Her stomach full of dread and regret, Annie raises her head.

“There was a perfect tie between the two nominees,” says Coach Ackerman, sounding vaguely pissed off. Annie’s head whips toward Mikasa in shock, who’s looking back at her with those gunpowder eyes. Then, slowly, Mikasa smiles. Annie smiles back, her heart light as a feather. “Normally, we’d have another vote but as there are only two of you, I’ll simply allow you to be co-captains…Congratulations,” he adds in a disgruntled voice. “Now get your asses on the bus. If we’re late, I’m blaming you brats.”

Annie picks up her backpack and climbs aboard the bus behind Mikasa, who takes a window seat around the middle. Annie hesitates for a moment, then Mikasa looks up at her with no hostility whatsoever, her eyes inviting and earnest. Annie slides in next to her and smiles shyly. Crap, why would she smile _shyly?_ Might as well just bat her eyelashes next.

“Good job,” says Mikasa.

“You too,” Annie replies. Mikasa turns back to her phone, and they’re quiet for the rest of the ride. But it’s a happy, content sort of quiet. Anything else they might’ve said to each other is hanging in the air, and Annie’s heart plucks them all out and stores them deep in the recesses of her mind, one by one.


	7. I Won't Forget About You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mikanni :-)

The whole weekend feels like a dream when Mikasa wakes up on Tuesday morning five minutes before her alarm goes off. She squints across the room at her brother bathed in watery early-morning sunlight squeezing through the slats of the blinds, his mouth open and drooling and his blankets thrown to the side by his splayed-out limbs. She can’t believe she was appointed captain. Well, yes she can. That part she can actually believe just fine. But the memory of Sunday night, Annie spilling her guts to her, them sitting on her bed with wet hair, talking in quiet voices about anything that dropped off their tongues, is shrouded like a dream, like mist when she thinks about it, and she wonders for a second if it really happened. But she knows it did because there’s one thing she can remember perfectly clearly- her smile. Annie looks like the sort of person who just never smiles, ever. Her eyes are dull and unenthusiastic almost no matter what’s going on. But when she smiled, they had crinkled up, and the blue-jean color of them had been suddenly saturated with warmth, pink lips stretching uncontrollably, like a real smile should be. She’d looked like someone else- no, not someone else, just a happier version of herself. A better version. That old quote pops up in her head- _Be the best possible version of yourself._ That’s exactly what Annie had been when she’d smiled. Smiled at Mikasa.

            Suddenly the alarm goes off with its customary blaringly loud beeps, and Eren lets out a groan that comes from the depths of his stomach and stretches slowly into practically a scream of irritation. From his contorted position, he swings his leg over and slams it down on the clock, which promptly falls to the ground with a crashing noise. Mikasa winces. Yeah, life is back to normal now.

*****************

            All throughout the day, Mikasa tries to focus on school, but nothing is very interesting at all, and for some reason, she can’t stop thinking about practice that evening. She and Annie are captains now, and- dare she say it?- friends. They’d gotten along amazingly the rest of the weekend, but training camp had been a different world. How would things go now that they were back in Trost? _I’ll just have to find out this afternoon,_ she keeps telling herself, but she can’t wait that long.

            Then finally, _finally,_ it’s three o’clock and she’s in the locker room right on time. Her shirt is halfway on when she hears the door open and shut. She pushes her head the rest of the way through and sees Annie standing by her locker.

            “Hey,” she says, opening it.

            Mikasa feels ecstatic, like her whole body is floating. Annie said hey to her, she said it _first,_ she initiated contact. God damnit, this isn’t like her. Why does she care so much?

            “Hey,” she replies. “So…we’re captains now. Ever been one before?”  
            Annie shakes her head and takes some clothes out of her locker. “But I hear you have. What do captains usually do?”

            “I mean it va-varies,” Mikasa says, choking on her words slightly as Annie pulls her shirt over her head. Her skin is…very…smooth. Yes. Smooth. Look at her eyes. “On my last team, we had to do a lot of the actual coaching and everything, but with Coach Ackerman here, I doubt that’ll be the case. Mostly we’ll just be encouraging the team, deciding on positions and drills for the day…usually we’re expected to put together social events for the team, too-”

            Annie lets out a loud groan. “Are you kidding me?” She pulls off her shorts. Fuck. “Social events? Like what?”  
            “Pasta dinners, secret Santas-” Mikasa is interrupted by a chattering group of players bursting through the doors. She drops her voice and leans closer to Annie, who smells of lemons and various clean things, and continues in a lower voice, “Fundraisers, practice matches, that sort of thing.”

            Their faces are really close together, and Mikasa doesn’t know why she doesn’t move hers.

            Annie is looking straight ahead at her locker, and, swallowing visibly, says, “That- that sounds not fun at all…I thought we’d just help coach the team…”

            Mikasa straightens up. “Well, we do that part, too. Didn’t you notice what the other captains did? Maybe I’m wrong.”  
            Annie scratches her head. There’s a pink flush smeared on both her cheeks. “Actually, now that I think about it, they did do all those things. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Hey, can I have your number?”

            It’s totally off topic, and Mikasa is taken completely by surprise. She guesses she deserves it, considering how close she’d leaned in. “Sure,” she says, hoping she doesn’t sound surprised. “You can give me yours too-”

            “What the hell is taking you brats so long?!” yells Coach Ackerman from outside the door. “Hurry up!”

            “Let’s do this after practice,” says Annie. Mikasa nods in agreement as the whole team books it to the field.

****************

            “Mikasa. Mikasa! MIKASA!”  
            “WHAT!”

            “I’ve been asking you for like ten minutes, do you want noodles or not?” says Eren. Mikasa looks up from her phone to see him holding a paper plate full of leftover Chinese noodles in front of her face.

            “Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Are Mom and Dad not here?”

            “Yeah, they said to just find some leftovers in the fridge for tonight. What are you even doing?”  
            Mikasa takes the plate and the plastic fork Eren hands her. “Just…deciding.”  
            “Deciding what?” he asks, sitting down on the couch next to her with his own plate and twirling his fork around in the noodles.

            “Whether or not to text her…” she mutters, staring down at the seven little numbers on her phone screen. She thoughtfully opens her can of soda and brings it to her lips, still not looking up from her phone.

            “Who?” asks Eren around a mouthful of food, grabbing for the remote.

            “Annie.”  
            He stops in his tracks. “ _Annie?_ ”

            “Yeah. We exchanged numbers after practice and I’m not sure if it’s too early to text her or not.”  
            Eren frowns. “I thought you hated her.”

            “I did,” concedes Mikasa, rearranging herself on the couch so her legs are folded under her. “But…we kind got over that at training camp. And we gave each other our numbers today.”

            “Oh. Well, why is it such a big deal whether you text her or not? She gave you her number. Why would she _not_ want you to text her?”

            “I’m still not really sure how she views our relationship,” Mikasa murmurs, bringing a forkful of noodles to her mouth. “I mean, maybe she just wanted to have my number because I’m the other captain.”

            Eren frowns again. “Your _relationship?_ Dude, if you hung out at training camp, she probably considers you a friend. And friends text each other. I still don’t get why you’re making such a big deal of this.”

            “Friends…” says Mikasa slowly. She guesses they are friends. Which is weird- really the only people she’d hung out with before moving to Trost were Armin and Eren. She’s actually never had a close girlfriend. Not a girlfriend. Just a friend who’s a girl. “Yeah,” she says, decisive suddenly. She puts down her fork and taps _new message._

**Hey, it’s mikasa. Is this Annie?**

            Eren peers over her shoulder. After about thirty seconds of nothing, a little gray bubble pops up with the words,

            **Yeah it’s me. Whats up?**

            Mikasa manages not to let out a sigh of relief. She isn’t sure what she was expecting, but she’s somehow thrilled that Annie texted back- and so quickly. And apparently she wants to know ‘what’s up’.

            “There, see?” says Eren, going back to his side of the couch and turning on the TV. “No big deal at all. Weirdo,” he tacks on as an afterthought. “The band’s coming over in like twenty minutes for practice, by the way.”

            Mikasa groans. “Then I’m using your headphones. Also, what are we doing this weekend?”

            “They’re playing _The Breakfast Club_ at the theater in honor of its something-eth anniversary, and I’ve never seen it.”

            “Okay. Is Armin coming?”  
            “Supposedly. If he doesn’t ditch us for _Jean_ again,” Eren growls.

            “You used his first name,” Mikasa notes.

            Eren is silent for a moment as he contemplates his mistake, then lets out a huff of fury and turns back towards the television. “Judge Judy would never treat me like this,” he mutters furiously.

****************

            “What the fuck do you mean, you’re ‘sick’?” Eren yells into the phone.

            “I mean I can’t breath through my nose and I’ve thrown up three times in the past twenty-four hours,” Armin’s nasally voice comes through the phone, accompanied by several loud sniffs.

            “Shit. Well, fine. Get better, I guess,” says Eren crossly.

            “Thank you,” says Armin weakly.

            “’Bye,” Eren mutters, putting the phone back in its cradle. “He can’t come,” says Eren crossly.

            “I heard,” says Mikasa, unfolding her arms.

            “What are you two doing?” asks their mom, coming into the kitchen.

            “We’re going to a movie,” replies Eren. Their mom frowns.

            “ _You’re_ not, Eren. We said we’d work on math today together, remember?”

            Eren opens and shuts his mouth. “Wh- that was like two days ago! Can’t we do it when I get back?”

            “Sorry, I’ve only got a few hours before I have to go meet with a colleague. And I’m not letting you shrug this off, we’ve been saying we’ll do this for weeks now. You have to get on top of these topics.”

            Eren groans loudly. “Moooo-oooom, come on! This is the only day they’ll be showing the movie!”

            “We can rent it on DVD. Come on, now, let’s get started. This might take a while.”

            Eren groans again. “Sorry, Mikasa. Looks like the movie’s off.”  
            “It’s okay,” mutters Mikasa. Great. Now she has nothing to do. Her phone buzzes and lights up with a message.

            **Annie: reiner told me sonic the hedgehog was a government project and I told him to get fucked**

Should she? Hesitantly, Mikasa starts typing.

            **Yeah I’m pretty sure the government had nothing to do with sonic the hedgehog. Hey, do you want to see breakfast club? Theyre playing it at the theater today.**

She steels herself and presses the send button decisively. Those three dots are there way too long, but finally-

            **Sure, what time?**

**Meet me there in ten**

**K see you**

            For some reason, their texts are now oddly curt, but Mikasa feels unexpectedly warm inside for some reason. She and Annie are hanging out- as friends. Just friends, because girls see movies together as friends all the time, really anything else would be weird…

            She slips her phone into her pocket and grabs her keys.

“Bye, Mom!” she calls, opening the door. She can’t help it- she’s excited.

***************

            Summer is slowly drying out as autumn waits just at the edge of the season, but the weather is still warm enough for all the people at the theater to still be wearing shorts, even in the evening. The sky is glowing purple, and despite the weight of school, Mikasa feels undeniably free as people around her laugh and chatter, faces lit up by the orange lights shining from behind the movie posters and the awning. Her skin feels pleasantly warm in the mild September air as she looks around until she catches a glimpse of blue jean eyes and walks over. Annie is wearing her Nike high tops and a tight shirt with little flowers all over it. She looks beautiful, especially in the soft light of the movie theater. Mikasa smiles.

            “Hey,” she says. “Gotten tickets yet?”

            Annie waves a pair of them in the air. “You owe me ten bucks and twelve cents.”

            Mikasa digs out the money and hands it to her in exchange for her ticket. “Ever seen this movie?”

            Annie shakes her head. “It’s supposed to be one of the greats, though. From this crowd, it better be.”

            At least half their grade has to be there, as well as a lot of others from school. Mikasa sees Marco and Jean standing near the door, Connie and Sasha loudly contemplating if they can afford candy, and a pair of girls she’s seen around school- one of them is tall and dark, and the other is as small and light as a pixie. They’re holding hands, Mikasa realizes with a jolt. She turns away quickly, but luckily, the doors swing open and the crowd surges forward.

            “Want popcorn?” she asks Annie.

            “Hell yeah,” the other girl replies. They get their food and walk down the aisle, talking as they look for good seats. As usual, there are about four hundred previews, and she holds back a laugh when she sees that Annie’s eaten all the popcorn about halfway through them.

            Finally the movie starts.

            _This is dumb,_ Mikasa thinks, staring at the bad haircuts and fashion choices illuminated by the grainy quality and awkward transitions.

            Two hours later, she has changed her mind completely. She presses her fingers to her lips and stares at the screen as John pumps his hand in the air and, “Don’t you…forget a-bout me…” plays. The theater erupts into applause and people begin standing up to leave. Mikasa looks over at Annie, who’s still staring at the screen.

            “Annie?”

            She turns to her, her eyes wide. “What are Claire’s friends going to think about her dating John? Will they actually date, or was that it? What about Brian’s? They said they’d all be friends, but will they? How do we know they didn’t just go back to their own social castes and keep ignoring each other the next day? There’s no way to know.”

            _She’s right,_ Mikasa realizes. “Yeah. There’s no way to know,” she repeats slowly, “And I think that’s the idea.”  
            Annie’s eyes get even wider, like she’s just revealed the secrets of the universe to her. Mikasa stares back into her shining eyes and she feels like something is passing between the two of them that neither can identify. A ghost of a shiver runs through her stomach.

            “That’s…the idea,” Annie murmurs. Their faces are close again- so close. Mikasa quickly snaps out of it.

            “Yeah, I’d say it definitely lived up to the hype,” she says, standing up. Annie looks a little confused, but she stands too.

            “I want the soundtrack now.”

            “It’s just bad eighties’ music.”

            “I don’t care, I want it.”

            They get as far as the curb, then Mikasa realizes this would be the part where they’d say goodbye if they had rides. But Mikasa doesn’t, and it doesn’t look like Annie does either.

            “Um, I live this way,” says Mikasa, pointing over her shoulder.

            “Oh. Well I actually have to go in the exact opposite direction, so I’ll see you Monday. Thanks for inviting me.” She looks almost shy, which is extremely unlike her. “It was fun.”

            “Yeah,” says Mikasa, smiling. “It was. See you Monday.”

            “’Bye,” says Annie waving and turning around. Mikasa starts walking back. She can’t stop thinking about that moment at the end of the movie. They’d been so close. So unbelievably close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *singing quietly* it's gettin' gay in here...so take off all your clothes... anyway this was 100% an excuse to vent my own feelings about the breakfast club, which is a fan-fucking-tastic movie. seriously, it's a classic, you've got to watch it. i feel like I'm losing steam tho...someone come bitchslap me so i keep going. or y'know, just comment.


	8. Where Your Lips Have Been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obligatory and very short jeanmarco chapter before the real stuff- also i am no songwriter so apologies for how bad that's bound to be

“Good practice, guys. Remember, we have a game coming up in two weeks, so tell people to be there,” says Jean, pulling his helmet off in the locker room.

            The other players made that collective grunting, yelling noise sports players make when they want to show their support for something and the room explodes into the noise of locker doors slamming open and loud, deep laughter.

            “Hey,” says Marco, lightly bumping Jean on the shoulder with his fist. His face is flushed from the inside of his helmet, which is tucked under his arm, and Jean can’t help but think how cute it is that his freckles stand out more this way.

            “You coming over? We should, you know, get a start on that English project,” he says with an eyebrow quirked playfully.

            Marco laughs. “The one not due for two months?”  
            Jean scowls and glances around before muttering, “You know what I mean.”

            Marco laughs again. “Yeah, I’ll come. Give me a minute.” Jean totally isn’t staring at his butt in those super tight football pants as he walks away.

            “Your parents give you the nicest car on the planet, and this is what you do with it,” Marco teases as he slides into the passenger seat.

            “Hey, if they gave it to me, that means I can do whatever I want with it,” grins Jean, turning the key in the ignition.

            “Like making a huge mess of it?”

            “Wow, what a flirt,” says Jean, peeling out of the parking lot. It’s true, though- the floor of the Lexus is covered in a thin layer of fast food wrappers, and there are photos and band stickers plastered all over the steering wheel. There are sports magazines crammed into every available space, and someone’s hung about thirty of what appear to be random pieces of garbage from the mirror. But he likes it in here- it’s…homey. Feels more like home than his own house, anyway. In here, he can scream his secrets as loud as he wants and no one would ever hear.

            “My parents will be home in like two hours, so we’ve gotta be decent by then,” smirks Jean, closing his bedroom door behind them.

            Marco puts a hand on the back of his neck, looks into his eyes, and says very softly, “Oh, trust me- it won’t take us nearly that long.”  
***********************

            “Move your leg,” Jean grumbles. They’re lying sticky and sweaty on his bed, and Jean’s arms have been compromised by Marco’s wrapped around them, his left leg thrown over Jean’s.

            Marco obliges, and Jean tucks his head under his chin, softly nosing at his neck. They’re quiet for a bit longer, then Marco says, “Jean-“

            “Mm?” mumbles Jean, not looking up and moving his thumb in circles over Marco’s wrist.

            “Are we ever going to tell anybody?”

            Jean’s thumb stops and his head jerks up. “What, about… _us?_ No! I mean- we’ve told Armin, isn’t that enough?”

            “That’s only one person. I just- aren’t you sort of tired of hiding?” he asks, his voice cautious. “What’s the worst that could happen if we told somebody?”

            “Marco, you know how my dad is. Not to mention the team- I’d definitely be kicked off,” he says, his stomach hot, and not just from Marco’s against it. Is he really saying this? Jean’s told him a thousand times, he absolutely cannot ever, _ever_ tell anyone he’s gay. Marco has said he’s bi, but Jean assumes he’d be just as against telling anyone that as Jean is.

            “They wouldn’t kick you off the team for being gay,” says Marco a little pleadingly. “I don’t think they can do that anymore. Besides, you’re the captain.”

            “They’d find some way, some subtle, careful way that would make it look like my fault or something,” retorts Jean.

            “Okay, okay, we won’t tell anyone,” Marco concedes, resting his cheek against Jean’s.

            “Good,” mumbles Jean, relaxing again.

            “Speaking of things your dad would hate…how’s the drawing?” asks Marco.

            “Oh! Do you wanna see?” asks Jean eagerly, sitting up.

            Marco smiles. “Of course I do. It’s so cute when you get excited.”

            “No it’s not,” Jean says, his voice muffled as he bends down to pull his sketchbook out from under his bed. He tosses it on the bed then rummages through his drawer and pulls on a pair of boxers and some sweatpants.

            “Okay, so here’s one I did of my mom from memory…here’s one of Armin from the back when we were in the comic book store…oh, this was this really cool old car that was parked outside once.”

            “They’re really good, Jean,” says Marco.

            “Thanks,” says Jean, grabbing a pencil.

            “No, I’m serious,” says Marco, sitting up to face him. “You’re getting better and better, and I think you have a real chance at this art school thing. But you have to make a portfolio, don’t you?”

            Jean sighs. “Yeah. I also need to have some evidence of having actually participated in the art scene during high school, but I don’t really know how to do that without people finding out.”

            “You could try to do it anonymously,” Marco suggests.

            Jean scratches his head with the end of the pencil. “I guess, but then I wouldn’t get the credit.” He sighs again. “It’s an infinite loop of…suckiness.”

            “How eloquent,” says Marco.

            “Yeah, yeah,” Jean grins. He leans back against Marco’s chest and starts sketching out their legs tangled together. They’re both quiet as they watch them take shape, Jean shading Marco’s legs so that they glow and stand out against the dark colors of Jean’s sweatpants.

 

            _“Marco, hurry_ up! _” Jean yelled urgently, waving a hand at the other boy impatiently._

_“Okay, I’m coming…” called Marco, jogging out to the car._

_“We should’ve been there like, ten minutes ago,” Jean complained, squinting out the windshield. It was the first week of summer, and Garrison Fable had finally dropped their new album._

_“I still can’t believe you actually like this kind of music,” Marco teased him._

_“Shut up, I have a hipster older sister in college no one’s ever met because she’s too cool for this town, remember? That’s who I’m getting it for,” joked Jean, winking at Marco._

_When they reached the store, there was already a short line of twenty-something people with big square glasses and beanies they refused to take off no matter the temperature. Jean bounded up to the back of the line, dragging Marco after him. It seemed like an eternity, but finally they reached the front._

_“One copy, please,” said Jean breathlessly, digging out his wallet. The cashier handed it over with a bored expression and held out her hand for the money. Jean gave it to her and turned to go._

_“Marco? Let’s go.”_

_Marco stared at him for a second, his cheeks flushed with excitement and his hands gripping the CD case so tightly they were almost shaking._

_“Hang on a second,” he said, then turned back to the cashier and said, “I’d like a copy too, please.”_

_“Sure. Twelve ninety-nine.”_

_Marco handed her the money then walked away to rejoin Jean, who was staring at him disbelievingly._

_“Why did you buy a CD? I thought you didn’t like this kind of music.”_

_“I don’t,” Marco replied slowly, opening the door again. “You just seemed so in love with it, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”_

_Jean stared at him a moment longer, then grinned. “Oh, you’ll see what the fuss is about, all right. I’ll make you love this band if it kills me.”_

_“Well, you don’t have to go_ that _far,” Marco laughed gently, climbing back into Jean’s car. Jean got in on the other side and slammed the door shut, then popped the CD into the machine. A girl with a ukulele and a soft, gurgly voice started singing._

 _“_ Come on and melt the rest of my heart-

            Your face is proud but you’re soft for me;

            I don’t know where your lips have been,

            But I sure know where they’re going to be”

            _The car felt warmer and smaller all of a sudden. Marco pointedly didn’t meet Jean’s eyes and said, “I- ah, I like it. The lyrics are…really good.”_

_“Yeah,” said Jean softly._

“I found you hiding in the stars,

            And now I’m hiding in your arms-”

            _Marco turned to Jean. There was a second where they hovered, indecisive, uncertain- then slowly but surely, leaned in, their hands coming up to each other faces and their lips pushing gently together._

_When they finally broke away, all they could do for a moment was stare, then Marco opened his mouth and said, “So- are you-”_

            _“Gay, yes, I’m- I’m gay.”_

_“Then-oh-okay-”_

_“A-are you?”_

_“Yes, I mean- maybe, I don’t know.”  
            There’s another pause._

_“But…I’d be willing to find out with you.”  
            Jean stared at him for a second, then slowly nodded his head. “Okay. Okay. I can do that. But we _ absolutely cannot _tell anyone else, right?”_

_“Yeah, I-I guess, if you don’t want to.”_

_“I don’t,” said Jean firmly. He glanced over at Marco, then, unable to resist, pecked him quickly on the lips again. “That was…” he blushed, leaning over the back of the seat to back out the parking space. “That was good,” he mumbled._

_“Yeah.” Marco smiled softly. “It was. It was really good.”_

            Jean runs his hand through his hair absent-mindedly now as he thinks about this. Since then, he’s downloaded that album onto his phone and put the CD in the box with his drawings that he keeps buried way far in the back of his closet. At the time, they’d just phrased it as, ‘finding out’. Now, Jean isn’t sure what it is. Jean’s known he’s gay pretty much his whole life, and Marco figured out he was bi about a month ago. They’re friends, but are they boyfriends, or just…fuck-buddies? He mentally cringes at the word, especially in respect to Marco- sweet, generous Marco, who’d been there for him since third grade, who might _want_ a steady boyfriend but would never tell him because he’s too nice to act like Jean’s anything less than perfect, despite the fact that Jean is, like…negative perfect.

            “Jean?” Marco says hesitantly. Jean looks up.

            “Hm?”  
            “You’ve just been staring at the page for five minutes, you okay?”

            “Oh- yeah, I’m fine. Just…thinking.”  
            “About what?”

            “Your jawline,” Jean jokes.

            Marco dissolves into giggles. When Jean drops him off later that night, he can’t shake the feeling that the two of them are charging headlong into something horrible, but he gets into his car and pushes the thoughts away the best he can. Even if everything goes wrong overnight, life will go on, and he’ll have to go on with it; and tomorrow, he has to go on with a football game.


	9. I'm Feelin' This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some plot stuff and a little Mikannie. also, TRIGGER WARNING FOR BOTH IN- AND EX-TERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA!!!! IT IS VERY BLATANT AND REALISTIC!!! PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION!!!

"...And then I punched him in the jaw, like, bam! And he started yelling in pain and ran away,” Eren finishes proudly to a wide-eyed Armin.

            “Holy shit. You got attacked?”

            “ _Yeah,_ but I totally whipped his ass,” replies Eren, cross that he hadn’t seemed to get the point.

            “That part of the story gets more extreme every time you tell it,” comments Mikasa, inspecting the nail polish display.

            “No it doesn’t! That’s exactly how it happened!” Eren argues defensively.

            “And you have no idea who it was?” demands Armin urgently.

            “Nope. But I’m gonna figure it out. Like Encyclopedia Brown,” Eren proclaims.

            “No offense, Eren, but I don’t think you’re quite on Encyclopedia Brown’s level,” says Armin dryly.

            “Whatever. I’m still gonna find out who it was,” says Eren crossly, grabbing two boxes of toothpaste off the shelf in front of him and dumping them in the shopping basket.

            “How?” asks Mikasa, selecting a bottle of light blue nail polish and putting it in the basket.

            “With this guy’s help!” says Eren, grabbing Armin around the shoulders and shaking him a little.

            “Eren, you’re suffocating him,” says Mikasa, taking the basket away from him and leading them into the frozen foods aisle of the CVS. “What did Mom say to get?”

            “Peas, ice cream, and a pizza,” Armin chips in helpfully. “And how am I supposed to help you find out your attacker, Eren?”

            “You’re the top of your class, you can totally figure it out,” he says confidently.

            “Eren, the only record I have of him is what you’ve told me, and you can’t even remember what he looks like,” Armin points out.

            “I think you should just tell the police or something,” says Mikasa, opening a door on one of the freezers letting a blast of cold air hit them all in the face.

            “No way,” says Eren stubbornly. “They never do anything, and besides, I want to bring him to justice myself.”

“Eren, you’re sixteen. You can’t bring a criminal to justice,” says Mikasa, tossing a bag of frozen peas into the basket and bending down to examine the selection of ice cream. She picks a carton of cookie dough and grabs a frozen pizza before slamming the door shut again. “What about the band? You need money, and Mom and Dad aren’t going to keep floating you forever. You should focus on that.”  
            “Why wouldn’t they?” demands Eren. “They do it for you.”

“Mikasa’s GPA has never been in the negatives,” says Armin as they walk towards the self-care aisle.

“That’s a complete exaggeration, it’s never been lower than 1.3,” says Eren defensively.

“You know, it’s not that you’re stupid,” says Mikasa.

“Of course I’m not stupid! What the fuck do you-“

“But you have no focus whatsoever,” she continues. “You should get a hold of your attention span.”

“My attention span is fine,” growls Eren, grabbing a bottle of shampoo and shoving it angrily into the basket. “You know what? Both of you can just shut up because I’m gonna be holding band tryouts soon. Actually,” he says, snatching a can of deodorant off the shelf and sniffing it aggressively, “I’m gonna have them this…” He trails off, his eyes wide and the deodorant clutched loosely in his hand.

“Eren?” Mikasa prompts.

“This is…this is…” he mutters, staring off into the distance. “My attacker. He was wearing this.”

Armin frowns. “The deodorant? Let me see.” He snatches it out of Eren’s hands and inspects it. “Silver Titan For Men? That sounds disgusting.” He takes a whiff of it and makes a face. “Very musky. Smells like something Jean would wear. Actually- I think he has worn this.”

“You mean Jean attacked me?” Eren demands, excited.

“No, I mean I think Marco and just about every other boy on the football team has worn this deodorant,” says Armin patiently.

“You can’t really make judgments based on a mass-produced male hygiene product,” Mikasa chimes in.

“But still, it’s something,” Eren says fiercely, then dumps a couple cans into his basket. “Armin, I need you to analyze this when we get home. Do your science thing on it. Look up some statistics. Who’s most likely to wear this stuff?”

“Eren, I just told you pretty much every sports player I know wears this,” Armin says weakly.

But Eren isn’t listening, just stalking off to the cashier with determination in his eyes. Armin and Mikasa exchange a glance.

“To be fair, it _is_ something. He knows what the guys smells like,” Mikasa points out.

Armin sighs. “I guess…but he shouldn’t get his hopes up like this. There’s no _real_ lead here.”

************

“Is this all you’re doing?” Mikasa asks, leaning over Eren’s shoulder as he makes a Facebook post. “I don’t really think you have enough Friends to get the kind of attention you need.”

“Of course that’s not all I’m doing,” says Eren, rolling his eyes. “I put posters up a few days ago, this is just a follow-up to make sure people know where to go.”

“When are the tryouts?” Mikasa asks, going back to her bed.

“In about twenty minutes.”

“ _Twenty minutes?_ ” she demands incredulously. “And you’re just telling people where to go now? Eren, no one’s going to show up.”  
            “Yes they will,” says Eren confidently. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

“Wow,” Mikasa mutters. “I’m impressed.”

But when Eren opens the door, it’s just Armin.

“Hey. Anyone showed up yet?” he asks, stepping inside.

Eren shakes his head. “But most people won’t come right on the dot.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, there’s another knock on the door. A boy with green hair and a really big earring- Zach, if Mikasa remembers correctly- is standing there uncertainly, a flyer clutched in his hand.

“Is this where the Wings of Freedom tryouts are?” he asks, glancing around.

“Yeah!” answers Eren, then straightens up proudly, tugging at the edges of the flannel he’s wearing unbuttoned over a black t-shirt. “I’m Eren, the lead singer, guitarist, and owner of the band.”

Armin cringes a little as Zach looks at Eren skeptically.

“Anyway, come this way. The stuff’s in the garage. You’re the first one here.”

Thomas, Mikasa, and Armin follow Eren as he leads them out the door. It’s mid-September, and the leaves are just turning golden and red, a light breeze tempting them from their branches.

Eren had told people that if they were trying out for drums, they didn’t have to bring their own because he could set them up himself. Zach sits down behind them with a self-assured air and pulls a pair of drumsticks out of his back pocket.

“You’ve got something prepared, right?” asks Eren, standing across from him. Mikasa and Armin sit down on a couple of folding chairs near the open entrance of the garage door. A chilly wind sweeps in and blows shivers through them. Mikasa crosses her legs and glances at her watch.

Zach nods his head for a moment then starts up a quick, basic rhythm that progresses into something a little more elaborate. A few minutes in, a couple more kids quietly file into the garage. Armin nods at the chairs next to them, and they all sit down. Zach finally finishes, and there’s scattered applause from the ten or so teenagers seated there.

“He was pretty good,” Mikasa mutters to Armin.

“Yeah,” he replies quietly. “I’m surprised at the turnout- I must admit, I didn’t think many people would show up.” There’s a pause where he picks at his loose striped t-shirt. “Is Eren…popular?”

“Eren?” asks Mikasa. “No. This is the only band I’ve heard of around here that’s taking people our age, so I think a lot of people want to show their stuff. Plus…” She trails off momentarily, watching a red-headed girl hanging off Eren’s forearm, giggling, while her friend fixes his collar and takes the opportunity to nuzzle a little at his ear. “I think the girls have latched on to him. He’s definitely popular with _them._ ”

“Hey, are we too late?” asks a voice from outside the door. Armin and Mikasa

turn towards the source to see a tall girl with dark skin, heavy-lidded eyes, a line of rings climbing down her left ear, and red and black Reebok men’s basketball shoes. Her arm is around the waist of a small girl with long, brassy-blonde hair, a short pink dress, sparkly lip-gloss, and little silver shoes. They look like if a metalhead smoker and a Disney princess had started hanging out.

            “No, don’t worry,” says Armin. “Didn’t know you guys would be trying out. Come on in.”

            The two girls stroll in, their footsteps perfectly synched-up as if they always walked like this, their arms around each other.

            Mikasa frowns. “Who are they?”

            “Tall one’s Ymir, small one’s Krista,” answers Armin, his gaze following the two of them.

            Suddenly Mikasa remembers- they were the girls who had been standing hand-in-hand at the movies. “Are they…” Mikasa watches Ymir sit down and smile as she pulls a giggling Krista down into her lap. “Together?”

            “Yeah,” says Armin. “Only openly gay couple in town. Apparently they know everything about everybody.”

            Mikasa raises an eyebrow. “What, the all-knowing lesbians?”

            “Yeah, frankly, that’s pretty much it,” says Armin. “If you have a secret, they’ll figure it out without even trying. They know everything at least an hour before everybody else. They’re like the omnipotent wise-women of this town.”

            “That’s ridiculous,” says Mikasa flatly, folding her arms and looking away from them. Still, she feels her eyes being dragged back to them like a dead body on display, and her mind wanders. Do they really know everyone’s secrets? It’s not as if she actually _has_ any secrets. Well…

            _Openly gay couple,_ says Armin’s voice in her head. Two girls. She thinks of Annie and her blue-jean eyes and her pretty smile. She thinks of sitting on her bed, the water from their wet hair mingling and pooling on the blankets, how close their faces had been, warm sweet breath puffing from between Annie’s delicate rosebud lips. How it would have felt to mix it with her own breath.

            No. No! No? No. No way. Even if they’ve become more comfortable with each other, Annie’s a girl. They can never be together that way, it’s just…weird. Besides, if there are some…lesbian telepaths in the room or whatever, she shouldn’t be thinking about it now.

            “Hey, you okay?” asks Armin, his baby eyes crinkling at her in concern.

            “Yeah, just…thinking,” mutters Mikasa.

            Armin gives her a lasting look but finally glances away towards where the auditions are playing out. “I didn’t realize there was so much musical talent in this town.” He cringes as a boy goes to town on a very badly tuned electric guitar. “Or not.”

            “Next!” yells Eren over the cacophony of the boy’s guitar playing. Ymir picks Krista up bridal style then lets her stand again in front of the drums.

            “I’m Ymir, and I play bass and sing back-up,” she tells Eren in a voice that sounds less informational and more confrontational, as if challenging him to dispute this.

            “And I’m Krista, I play keyboard and also sing back-up,” says Krista cheerfully.

            “Go ahead,” says Eren, his little harem perching themselves on the edge of his chair as he watches the girls in anticipation.

            Ymir picks out a fast-paced, subtle bass riff and sings a couple notes repeating over and over quietly in her rough, well-worn voice. Krista starts playing the keyboard- a simple, high, sweet melody that she adds her flute-like voice to. She slowly brings in some chords, and the two girls’ voices flow together, Krista’s the jumping, prominent current as Ymir’s carries and surrounds it, making it more whole and interesting. Their instruments push emotion through at just the right moments, and everyone listens in rapt attention. When they finally finish, Eren jumps up, sending the girls spilling to the floor.

            “Holy shit, that was fucking great! Ymir and Krista? Okay, Zach, you go back to the drums, I wanna try this all together!”

            Zach sits down again, and Ymir and Krista stand back at attention as Eren loops the strap of his guitar over his shoulder and fiddles with the tuning on it for a bit.

            “Do you guys all know ‘Feeling This’ by Blink-182?” Three nods of assent. Eren’s guitar grinds to life and Zach softly begins the drums.

            “Get ready for action,” Ymir says in a low voice.

            “I’m gonna regret right now!”

            “I’m feeling this!”

            “The air is so cold and low!”

            “I’m feeling this!”

            The beat kicks in, and soon everybody in the garage is dancing a little in their seats.

            “Woo-hoo! Yeah, Eren!” shrieks a girl. She stands up and starts dancing around. Armin and Mikasa exchange a glance, but to their surprise, a couple people around them get up and start dancing too. Armin looks vaguely uncomfortable, and Mikasa gives him a consoling look.

            “Hey, they sound good,” comments a voice next to his ear. Armin jumps in surprise and sees Marco standing next to a disgruntled looking Jean.

            “Y-yeah, they do, don’t they?” he says, smiling a little.

            “What’s this?” asks Reiner, sticking his head in, Bertoldt and Annie coming in behind him.

            “Band tryouts. Hey Annie,” says Mikasa, looking right past the boys. Annie smiles and comes in to stand next to her.

            “Faaate- fell short, thiiiis time- your smile fades in the summer,” sings Eren.

            “C’mon guys!” yells Reiner happily, grabbing Bertholdt and Annie’s hands, who grabs Mikasa, who grabs Armin. Soon enough, she finds herself dancing in the middle of a crowded garage, kids yelling and whooping along to the band. Sort of instinctively, Mikasa grabs for Annie’s hand and spins her around. Annie looks surprised but then there it is, that smile, that _smile,_ and it’s perfect. This moment. It’s perfect.

****************

            “I heard that little impromptu concert you had in the garage today,” Mrs. Jaeger comments to Eren over leftover bean salad. “Sounds like you found some pretty worthy band members.”

            “I totally did!” exclaimed Eren happily. “I had no idea I’d be so successful, but they’re great, especially Ymir and Krista. They work so well together, they’d probably be great on their own.”

            “Don’t tell them that, they’ll get ideas,” says Dr. Jaeger, smiling a little.

            “We’re gonna have so many concerts. I’ll bet everyone comes,” says Eren enthusiastically. Suddenly his mouth drops open in sudden realization. “I wonder if Mr. Ackerman will come! That would be awesome.”

            Their parents exchange a glance. Eren frowns. “What?”

            “Nothing, just…you know why he was kicked out of the league, right?”

            “For beating up some good-for-nothing gangs!” answers Eren confidently.

            “Well…yes, supposedly,” says Mrs. Jaeger. “But there are also some rumors that he was having an affair with his coach. His _male_ coach.”

            Mikasa’s eyebrows shoot up. Eren drops his fork in shock. “Mr. Ackerman’s _gay?_ How didn’t I know that? I thought I knew everything about him! And I didn’t even know he’s gay!”

            “Well, yes, but it’s pretty strange that he would go on to teach high school, don’t you think?”

            Mikasa almost chimes in with her agreement, but Dr. Jaeger continues, “We’re just a little worried about you, that’s all.”

            Eren frowns. “What, that he’ll try something with the kids? I mean, he's not a pedophile…”

            Mrs. Jaeger sighs and glances over at Dr. Jaeger again. “We just don’t really think it’s appropriate for someone like that to be in a school setting.”

            Mikasa feels heat rising in her throat. Why does she care, anyway? Maybe it is weird. She was just thinking that a few hours ago. But suddenly it’s not okay. It’s not okay for her parents to say that. How could she not have known that her parents are homophobic? Well, it shouldn’t matter, anyway. Or should it? Is she gay? No, of course not. Then why does she care? She doesn’t. She does. Her parents are assholes. No they’re not, they’re just the same as most of the world, at least on this topic. Well maybe the rest of the world’s wrong.

            With a screech of wood-on-wood, Mikasa pushes her chair back.

            “Mikasa?” asks Eren, looking up at her in confusion.

            “I’m not that hungry. I’m going to go…do homework. Thanks for dinner, Mom,” she says, turning sharply on her heel and resisting the urge to stomp up the stairs.

            When she gets to her room, she lies down on her bed. Then she mashes her face into her pillow and lets out a muffled scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there's krista and ymir, yay! also song recs for this fic- Feeling This by Blink-182 (obviously), Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, Dirty Little Secret by The All-American Rejects, and Check Yes, Juliet by We The Kings


	10. Clueless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

“Who’s that?” Annie mutters to Mikasa, nodding at a tall blonde man in a suit standing at Coach Ackerman’s side while she pulls her water bottle open with her teeth. It’s mid-October, and the soccer team is doing better than ever under both of their leadership.

            Mikasa squints into the low afternoon sun to look at him more closely. “Is that…Erwin Smith?”

            “The Sina University coach?” demands Annie, her jaw dropping. She comes up closer to Mikasa, and no don’t think about how hot she looks all sweaty like that, fucking hell it’s just _sweat,_ but- “Look how pissed of Ackerman looks. Didn’t Smith used to be _his_ coach?”

            Mikasa remembers what her parents had been saying last night- an affair with his coach…his _male_ coach. Her eyes narrow. No wonder he looks pissed off.

            “He must be here to check out potential recruits,” she mutters.

            “He’d come to _this_ wasteland to recruit for _Sina_?” says Annie. “He’s gonna be pretty disappointed.”

            “Not by us,” challenges Mikasa.

Annie’s eyes flash playfully. “You’re on.”

They’re the captains; of course they can’t just neglect the rest of the team. So everyone gets a pass or two, they’re careful of that, but Annie does all the _actual_ scoring, and Mikasa is the one whose kicks keep the other team’s ball out of their goal while they scrimmage.

“I think that went well,” she says to Annie quietly when Coach Ackerman finally calls the end of practice.

“Smith was definitely checking us out, if you know what I mean,” Annie deadpans.

“Oh God, don’t say it like that.”

“Are you going to the football game tonight?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Obviously,” says Annie, bending over to grab her bag. “Reiner and Bertholdt,” she elaborates at Mikasa’s questioning glance.

“Oh. Well, see you there,” says Mikasa. “If they win, they’re having a party, right? Since we won our game last week, and all.”

“Yeah, but it would be a miracle. They haven’t won yet all season,” replies Annie.

“They’re not a bad team, all the other teams are just…better,” says Mikasa.

“Like I said, a miracle. But if that miracle _does_ occur, the party’ll be at Marco’s,” says Annie, starting off down the hill. “Bring whoever you want. You know how these things are.”

“Yeah,” says Mikasa, watching her jog down the hill and climb into Reiner’s car. The truth is, she doesn’t. She’s only ever been to one house party, back in Shiganshina, and there had been maybe two boys and not a single bottle of alcohol in sight. She gets the feeling that most are a little less civil. Guess she’ll find out.

***************

“He’s running, he’s running, oh is that an interception? No, he’s still going, he’s still going, is this it? Could it be? Yes! A touchdown! Trost wins!”

The bleachers explode into cheers and applause as Jean spikes the ball in victory and starts chest-bumping the rest of the team.

“Yeaaaahhhhh! Eat our _shit,_ Rose!” yells Eren, jumping up and down happily.

“You know what this means,” Armin says to her under the roar of the crowd. “Party at Marco’s tonight.”

“I know,” she responds calmly, watching the cheerleaders going nuts on the field below. She knows, all right.

“Eren!” she says right in his ear.

“Get FUCKED, Rose! _What,_ Mikasa?”

“There’s going to be a party at Marco’s tonight. Want to go?”

“Hell _yeah!_ ” he answers enthusiastically.

“Then we have to go _now,_ ” she says.

“What? Why?”

“Mom and Dad.”

“Oh. Right.”

***********

“Dad’s on a business trip, but Mom goes to bed at eleven. So at ten thirty, we say good night and come up here. Then I’ll leave and you stay here until she goes to bed, just in case,” Eren says to Mikasa as he paces up and down the length of their room.

“Why are you pacing?” she asks from where she’s sitting on her bed.

“Because it’s cooler. That’s the plan, got it?”

“I’m the one who came up with it, so yes, I’ve got it. Although I notice that _I’m_ the one who has to stay behind. Why is that?”

“Damn it, you noticed?”

Mikasa rolls her eyes. “Yes, I noticed, Eren. But…I guess you can go first if you want.”

“Aw, yeah! Thanks, Mikasa, you’re the best.”

“I don’t want to be faced with the responsibility of keeping you sober, so if I’m not there, no one can blame me,” she continues.

“Hey, I won’t get that drunk,” says Eren crossly. Mikasa raises an eyebrow at him. “Okay, I’ll probably get _pretty_ drunk. But Armin can definitely take care of me.”

“Oh please, you know Armin’s a total lightweight,” she snorts.

“Heeeey, would you look at that, it’s ten thirty! I’d better go say good night to Mom,” says Eren quickly, shimmying out of the room. Mikasa sighs and gets up to go to the closet. Eren’s been to a lot more house parties than her- how, she has no idea- and she always ends up having to hide his obvious state of complete and utter drunkenness from their parents. She lets her fingers dance over her options for a minute before selecting the shortest dress she has- it’s a black, lacy thing she’d carefully avoided showing to her parents. She slips it over her head then bunches it up and stuffs it into a loose shirt and pulls pajama pants on underneath. She picks up a pocket mirror and fixes her makeup, then grabs a pair of red heels and slips them under her bed. After a moment of hesitation, she grabs a couple armloads of laundry and arranges them under Eren’s sheets.

A moment later, he comes back into the room and grabs some clothes from his drawers.

“How do I look?” he whispers after putting them on. He’s wearing the most ripped pair of black skinny jeans he owns, some pretentious band shirt, and a black leather jacket.

“Fantastic. Get going.”

He slips back out the door, and Mikasa waits for his footsteps to disappear. She leans over and watches out the window as Eren’s silhouette appears outside the back door and gives her a thumbs-up. She gives one back, then turns out the light and slides under the covers. A few minutes later, their mother sticks her head in the door. Mikasa closes her eyes and holds her breath. After a tense pause, she finally disappears. Mikasa exhales, stands up, and wriggles out of her pajamas and grabs her shoes by the heels. She counts to twenty then slips out the door and makes her way down the stairs, stepping on the edges so they don’t creak. Quietly, _quietly,_ she unlocks the back door, opens it, shuts it behind her, and… _ah._ Free at last. She locks the door behind her, sticks the key under the mat, slips on her heels, and steps lightly off the porch.

The streets are quiet, but as she approaches Marco’s house, the noise of car doors slamming fills the air. The house, a square red-brick with a screened-in porch and a large, flat front yard, is lit up with colored lights and sparks as kids light cigarettes and joints in the front yard. Knock-off Louis Vuitton stilettos and boots stomp up the porch steps.

She takes a deep breath. Here she goes.

A blast of noise hits her as she steps through the doorway. Sweaty bodies clad in tight nylon and denim crowd together, the teeming mass dotted with sloshing red plastic cups.

“Mikasa!” says a voice next to her elbow. She turns to see Armin standing there with a petrified look on his face.

“Armin! Are you okay?”

“I can’t find Jean, have you seen him?” he asks, although his eyes seem to be looking at two different spots, neither of them her face.

“Are you _drunk? Already?_ And why do you need _Jean?_ ”

“Jock buffer.”

“What?”

“Jock buffer!”  
            “Armin!” shrieks Jean, vaulting over the couch with a nervous-looking Marco in tow and throwing an arm around Armin. “Found youuuuu! We’re gonna go play BEER-PONG! You can’t miss BEER-PONG!!!!”

Mikasa flinches at the volume of his voice but lets Armin be dragged away with some reluctance. She walks into the kitchen, where Bertholdt is staring at a half-full bottle of beer like it’s just told him his dog died and Reiner is attempting to comfort him by showing him pictures of cats dressed up as dinosaurs. She glances out the door to see Sasha and Connie shrouded in a cloud of weed smoke as they giggle and attempt to offer joints to some patio chairs.

“MIKASA! COME DANCE WITH ME!” yells Marlo, grabbing her by the wrist.

“No- I don’t-” But it’s too late- she’s already out on the dance floor, oh God this is a nightmare there are so many _people-_ but actually…it’s not so bad. The music sends the bass rocking under the floor and up through her feet, and despite their drunkenness, there is some rhythm to people’s movements. They are, to some degree, united. She turns back to Marlo and lifts her arms in the air and starts jumping with the crowd.

“Woo! Yeah, Mikasa!” he screeches.

She smiles. The song switches over and she starts jumping more slowly to match the beat. Suddenly, she catches sight of lemon-cream locks coming in the door. Annie, looking tastefully bored but also slightly guarded, as usual, stalks in on black high heels as well as a tight black miniskirt and deep blue crop top. Her lips are blood-red, and Mikasa wants to walk over to her- but then she’s disappeared, and Mikasa is swallowed by the crowd again. She must spend at least an hour mindlessly dancing to terrible pop music before she finally manages to extricate herself from the mass of bodies and hurry up the stairs for some much-needed fresh air (she’d go outside, but Sasha and Connie have made the air just about as un-fresh as they can). Someone tries to hand her a bottle on her way, but she pushes it away and continues until she reaches the bathroom and slams the door shut behind her with a loud exhale.

There’s a sobbing noise from behind her. _Shit,_ she thinks. _There’s someone in here._ She turns slowly towards the source. It’s Annie.

Somehow in the hour between now and when Mikasa had seen her last, Annie has become completely, horribly, violently drunk. Not quite blackout drunk, but _very_ drunk. Her cheeks are pink and wet from her tears; her shoes are a few feet away, and the heel has come off of one of them. A bottle is held weakly in her left hand, and two more lie on the ground, the remains of their contents dripping slowly out on the chipped tile floor. Her body heaves with gross, messy sobs, and mucky black flakes of eye makeup plaster the area under her eyes.

“Annie?” asks Mikasa hesitantly. Annie looks up.

“I’ll n-never find her,” she says, her words slurred.

“You mean…your mother?” Mikasa asks hesitantly, still standing over her. She has no fucking idea what to do.

“Even if I d-do, will she even w-want to talk to m-me? Mikasa,” she says, staring up at her with wide eyes. _Well, at least she’s aware it’s me,_ Mikasa thinks, before Annie continues, “I’ve d-done such h-horrible things.” Her voice breaks again and a fresh torrent of tears floods from her eyes.

Mikasa slowly sits down and edges closer to her. “Like what?”

Annie just shakes her head and starts crying again. “W-what if I grow up to be like him? H-he’s m-making me ruin my own l-life! I hate him, I hate him, I h-hate him…” she dissolves into some cross between sobs and hysterical giggles.

Mikasa feels something enter her heart like a dagger. She’s never seen someone so helpless before. She’s like a drowned kitten, but…she’s beautiful. She’s so beautiful, but she’s crying, not to mention absolutely hammered, and Mikasa has no idea what to do.

She remembers her first kiss. She’d been in seventh grade, and a boy she’d never really talked to much had tapped her shyly on the shoulder, and, staring at the ground with red-tipped ears, offered her a bunch of wildflowers, with just enough dirt still clinging to the bottoms to tell her that he’d just picked them but had tried to clean them up a little bit. She remembers that she’d liked the flowers, his soft blue sweater, and his high, sweet, prepubescent voice when he’d asked her to be his Valentine. So she took the flowers, bent down, and pecked him on the lips. But that’s where she can’t remember anymore- she can’t remember enjoying it, or how it felt, or if she’d wanted to do it again. It had just sort of…happened. Then the boy had stared up at her with delight and scampered off to tell his friends, and that was that.

She’s kissed other boys since then, of course, but she doesn’t really remember them. It’s like after that one, they stopped being significant. She knows what to do and she knows what they like, but she’s still never felt that fairytale spark.

It’s a mixture of uncertainty, a desperation to _know,_ and a yearning for that spark that cause her to lean in slowly now. Annie’s sobs cut off suddenly, and wild blue-jean eyes meet hers. Before she loses her nerve, she squeezes her eyes shut and leans in all the way, and then Annie’s lips are on hers.

When they touch, it’s not so much of a spark as an explosion, like the power lines in Mikasa’s head have abruptly snapped- but the feeling subsides quickly into something softer, like ice cream on the boardwalk at night, like a slow dance under a pink moon, warm like beach sand in early June. Annie’s lips are sweet and gentle and don’t taste even the slightest bit like booze. She makes a little noise against Mikasa’s mouth, but it’s not surprise or protest, and Mikasa dips her head to push deeper into the other girl’s mouth. She feels Annie’s eyelashes flutter against her cheek and lets out a slight gasp as their lips pulse together. Annie’s tongue slides slowly into Mikasa’s mouth, tying them together and making Mikasa feel ridiculously tipsy, as if Annie is breathing alcohol straight into her lungs. Her arms circle hungrily around Mikasa’s neck, and Mikasa climbs carefully into her lap. Annie is a summer evening come to life, warm and soft and slow, and utterly intoxicating.

Mikasa opens her eyes just a crack, but Annie’s remain shut closed, not a trace of hesitation or worry on her face. But then again, how do you tell with a drunk person? Then Annie’s lips pull her back in again, their mouths moving rhythmically, like ocean waves.

Suddenly there’s a knock on the door.

“Shit,” Mikasa mutters, scrambling to her feet and grabbing Annie’s shoes. “C’mon, we gotta go,” she says, offering Annie her hand.

“What…” she says dazedly, staring blankly at Mikasa’s outstretched hand.

“We don’t have time for that,” says Mikasa, hauling her up by her wrist and wrapping an arm around her waist to support her. She opens the door with the excuse, ‘I was holding her hair,’ on the tip of her tongue, but the guy waiting outside has almost gotten the girl’s shirt completely off, so she thinks it’s safe to say they don’t notice.

“M-mikasa,” slurs Annie in confusion as Mikasa leads her down the stairs as quickly as she can. “Wait…stop…”

“Annie!” exclaims Reiner, who’s standing at the bottom of the stairs with one arm around a half-passed out Bertholdt. “Mikasa? What the hell happened?”

“Are you sober?” demands Mikasa urgently.

“W- yeah, but-”

“Are you sure? You were showing Bertholdt cat pictures earlier.”

“That’s-that’s just how I help cheer him up when he’s drunk- what the fuck _happened?_ ”  
            “She got really drunk. I found her crying in the bathroom. So you swear that you’re sober?”

“Yes, I’m sure! What was she crying about? She’s usually a really silly drunk, why did-”

“If you’re really and truly sober, take her home right now,” Mikasa orders.

“Miiiikasa, what-” Annie complains as Mikasa deposits her and her shoes none too gently into Reiner’s other arm.

“Promise to take her home?” Mikasa asks, staring Reiner straight in the eye. Reiner nods slowly, his face still a mask of confusion.

“Thank you,” she says finally. “Thank you so much, Reiner.”

With that, she turns away and allows the crowd to swallow her, her heart still going a million miles an hour.

Oh God. What has she _done?_ She just made out with Annie. Annie, another girl. A girl. And she _liked_ it. Way more than any of the kisses she’s ever shared with any boys. Is she gay?

“Hey, Mikasa, right?” asks a rough voice from behind her. She spins around quickly to see- Ymir, one hand on her hip and the other on Krista’s shoulder. Armin’s voice echoes in her ears- _they know everything about everybody._ If she were anyone else, now is when she would start having a breakdown, but she pulls herself together and says,

“Yeah, that’s me. You guys are in my brother’s band.”

Krista nods. “We just wanted to know if you’re okay.”

Mikasa’s hackles rise. “Okay? Yes, of course I’m okay. I’m fine.” She fights to level her voice into something more polite. “Do I look okay?”

“Oh, you look fine,” says Krista slowly. “But…do you _feel_ okay?”

Mikasa wonders if there maybe is something to the all-knowing lesbians theory. “Yeah, I feel absolutely perfect. Everything’s fine.” She feels sick and everything is awful.

Both girls give her a long, lasting look. It feels like the sun and the moon have both turned their glares directly on her, and she stares at the rings glinting in the shell of Ymir’s ear to avoid their gaze.

“Well, if you’re sure,” says Ymir finally. Her expression doesn’t match her words.

“Let us know if you…need anything,” adds Krista sweetly. And not fake at all- she is genuinely very sweet, and she wonders vaguely why she would get with someone like Ymir, who seems like a bit of an asshole. Then again, she did just kiss Annie.

“Sure. Thanks for checking on me,” says Mikasa, then turns and walks away quickly. She can feel their eyes boring holes into her back, and it hits her that they _know,_ they must know, why else would they be asking her those questions? And if they know, it’s only a matter of time before everyone else in town knows.

Fuck. This is too much. She sits down in an armchair in the corner of Marco’s living room and buries her face in her hands. The lights are way too bright. She lifts her head up again. Three half-deflated beach balls fly past her nose, and the song’s beat drops, making her heart pound way too hard. Her head reels and her stomach churns. She’s having a crisis. _Is_ she a lesbian? Right now, it’s looking pretty likely.

 _Oh shit,_ she thinks, her heart falling even farther into her stomach. _Will Annie remember?_ She’d been _really_ drunk, but not blackout drunk, so she’d probably remember _some_ things from tonight. And making out with Mikasa had been a pretty big thing.

“Mikasa!” yells Eren. She looks to her right, where he’s wearing about three fake leis, and the same number of girls are dangling off his arm, giggling and sporting identical sloshing red plastic cups. Eren himself is holding one and seems to be held up only by the girls and sheer luck. “I found you! Dude,” he says, swaying dangerously, his words slurred and halting. “I have made out with, like, six people tonight. I think one of them might’ve been Annie, sorry ‘bout that,” he laughs, although he’s quickly interrupted by a violent hiccup.

 _I know you weren’t making out with Annie because_ I _was making out with Annie,_ Mikasa thinks privately. “We have to go,” she says, standing up and grabbing Eren’s arm amidst drunken protests from the girls.

“Whaaaat? Why? I was having fuuuun, Mikasaaaa,” he whines. But he’s no match for her right now, and she manages to haul his ass to the door to where a bewildered-looking Armin is contemplating some piece of modern art on the wall with an open mouth and a blank stare.

“Come on,” she says to him, grabbing his arm in her other hand and yanking both boys out the door and to Armin’s car.

“Mikasa! You came! Wanna hang with us?” calls Connie, who has apparently migrated from the backyard to the front with Sasha.

Mikasa doesn’t reply but opens the car door, shoves Armin and Eren inside, and slams it shut behind them. She climbs into the front seat and sticks the key she’d pulled from Armin’s jeans’ pocket into the ignition and turns it. She doesn’t care how many speed limits she breaks as she speeds away from the house. She doesn’t look back once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah the title's from that movie. sorry this didn't update for so long...I'd be lying if i said it's not coming along a little slower


	11. Sparks Fly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so a few people have been saying that they're really enjoying this and want it to continue, so I decided to post this chapter. I wrote it a very long time ago and didn't really edit it because i honestly don't know when/if I'm ever going to finish this thing, but you guys are so supportive and awesome i feel like you deserve everything i can give you. hopefully this will satisfy you and not make you hate me lol. but thanks again lovely readers, for without you id never do shit

            It’s not unusual for Annie to wake up with a horrific hangover on Saturday mornings, but their regularity never seem to soften the blow. And this one is particularly bad.

            “Ah-” she says out loud, wincing as she sits up. Black spots with weird yellow fuzz at the edges obstruct her vision. Her intricate iron bed frame seems to bend and waver before her eyes into a tangle of black spaghetti, and her head feels like it’s splitting down the middle. Suddenly her stomach lurches, and she just barely makes it to the toilet. As she’s throwing up, she reflects on the fact that she always has to hold her own hair. Isn’t she supposed to have some slightly-uglier-gal-pal doing that for her and patting her back sympathetically?

            Speaking of gal pals. The bathroom swims before her eyes again as another dizzy spell takes over her, this one laced with memories of Mikasa’s lace dress spread over her own thighs, their mouths mashing together hungrily. Did that really happen? She must be imagining it. Mikasa would never do that. But it seems so real- she can remember the exact scent of her perfume and how her hands had felt all over her. But Mikasa would never do that. Why would she? And why would Annie have gone along with it? Well, to be fair, she had been drunk. But no amount of alcohol could make her kiss another girl, not even Mikasa, no matter how much she’s starting to like her.

            She stumbles back to her room, still mulling things over, trying to decide if it had really happened or if in her drunken haze, she’d concocted some incredibly elaborate cross between an illusion and a wet dream. She stands in the middle of her carpet for a second just squinting in the light coming through the balcony window and vaguely trying to remember where she’d been going. Something on her bedside table catches her eye- a folded piece of notebook paper. She walks over and unfolds it.

            _Hey Annie- so last night Mikasa basically carried you down the stairs and dumped you on us. You were really drunk, your shoes were broken, and there were tear tracks on your face. Being the ~~antisocial shitwad~~ reserved person you are, we understand you probably don’t want to explain what happened to us. But if you do, we’re happy to listen. Reiner drove you home and Bertoldt got you in bed without waking up your dad. ~~Just call us your own personal James Bon~~ Call us if you need anything._

_-Reiner and Bertoldt_

            Annie grips the paper so hard her hands shake. Even in this state, she can put together what this means. Mikasa brought her downstairs. So she’d been upstairs with Mikasa. And she definitely remembers kissing someone in the bathroom after crying a lot. Reiner and Bertholdt said there were tear tracks on her face.

            “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What am I gonna do. Fuck.” She grabs at her hair. How could she have done that? Kissed another girl? Kissed _Mikasa?_ She really likes Mikasa, but not in that way…or does she? Mikasa is amazing. She’s perfect, really- too perfect. She makes Annie feel like she’s everything, somehow. Shit. _Is_ she gay for Mikasa? She’s kissed boys and _liked_ it. She’s never really been attracted to supermodels or the Pin Up girls in Reiner’s posters. But she’s really attracted to Mikasa. She presses her hands to her temples as her phone lights up next to her. She grabs it and reads the message-

            **Greindr:** is it cool if we get u at 6 tonight

            This is too fucking much. It’s ten in the morning, she’s having an identity crisis, and Reiner wants to make plans to go do something illegal tonight.

            _Sure whatever but don’t text me again today_

_Whats got u in a bitch fit now_

_I said not to text me again today_

She waits a second, but there wasn’t another message. Closing her eyes, she slides back under the covers as her headache pounds on, magnified by the painful light under her eyelids. She kissed a girl. And she liked it. Unbidden, that Katy Perry song starts playing in her head. She wants to scream. Was Mikasa drunk, too? If she wasn’t, she’d remember. Annie doesn’t even have a way of finding out- _Hey, I think I may have gotten totally shitfaced a while ago and made out with you. Were you by any chance totally shitfaced too and therefore can’t remember it, except now that I’ve just reminded you, you totally do remember it?_ She curls even farther into herself. She has to see Mikasa every single day. How are they going to handle this? If Mikasa _does_ remember, will she say something? _I’m not going to say_ anything _about it,_ she decides finally. She’s not going to fuck up a perfectly good friendship, one that she had been really enjoying. She would stay silent, and hopefully it would fade into the background of her life, the way everything eventually did. But nothing ever faded without leaving its mark, and Annie can’t help but wonder if maybe kissing Mikasa would leave a good one as opposed to a scar.

            She considers going downstairs for something cold to press against her head, but before she can make that decision, she hears footsteps on the stairs. She quickly drops her phone into the drawer of her bedside table and slides back under the covers, doing her best to look asleep. The footsteps creak sluggishly along the wooden floorboards and stop dead in her doorway. Annie holds her breath. After an extremely long ten seconds, he finally walks away again.

            Annie lets out her breath when she hears the telltale squeak that means he’s gotten back into his recliner downstairs. She knows she can’t avoid him all day and she might as well face him now, but she just doesn’t feel up to it. He’ll have questions- prying and scrutinizing, with terrible consequences if she gives the wrong answer. Her phone chimes again and she pulls it out of the drawer.

            **Hoover Vacuum:** hey I know you told reiner not to talk to you again but I wanted to see if youre okay and if you want to talk or whatever.

            Annie bites back a groan. There’s another thing- she knows Bertholdt is really into her. How would he feel if he knew she’d kissed Mikasa? Would he be freaked out? Crushed? Would she lose one of her best friends? Goddammit, why is life like this. This is why she never goes anywhere or talks to anyone. Shit like this happens.

            _Im fine thanks for asking tho_

_Are you sure?_

_Yeah_

_Ok. See you tonight?_

_Yeah._

Without waiting to see if he texts back, she silences the ringer and puts her phone down again. They’re going out tonight. That means she’ll have to sit in Reiner’s nasty car, and in her current state, she doesn’t feel like doing that at all. She pulls her covers over her head, which has stopped stabbing and is more just throbbing. See you tonight. She doesn’t want to see anyone tonight, especially not for what she and the others are going to do. She wishes she’d never gotten them involved in all this stuff in the first place, but crime is an addiction. It’s a strange concept, but there is something about it that sucks you down like an undertow and keeps dragging you back out before you can even try to get away. Some kids are addicted to drugs. Some are addicted to alcohol. Some are addicted to sex. Reiner, Annie, and Bertoldt are addicted to crime. Sometimes she looks at Sasha and Connie and sees how happy they are and thinks that maybe weed would be a better alternative, but there's no getting away from what she's done now.

            She remembers the first time they’d done something. The night it started.

 

            _“You are not going to that dance.”_

_“Why not?” she demanded. She actually didn’t really want to go to the Spring Fling, but it was the concept of the thing. She wanted to go so she’d be able to say she’d worn a short black dress and danced with a boy and left her shoes on the side of a gym floor. She hated dancing, but she felt like she needed to go to at least one. To say she’d done it. To at least have had the experience._

_“Because I said,” her father answered._

_“Is it because there’ll be boys there? I promise I’ll turn down the thousands of suitors I’m sure to attract,” she said sarcastically._

_“I don’t care. You’re not going,” he said. The bottom half of his face was the color of bruises from the stubble he hadn’t shaved in week. A beer bottle was clutched half-heartedly in his hand, and little drops of it sloshed onto the floor. “Tell me, what have you done in the past few weeks to deserve it? Nothing. You don’t do anything.”_

_“Exactly, I don’t do anything!” said Annie furiously. “So that means I haven’t done anything to deserve_ not _being allowed to go. Why won’t you let me?’_

_“I told you why!” he barked, then closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his forehead. “Don’t fight me on this, girl. I’ve told you my answer, and that’s final.”_

_“That’s not fair,” said Annie, her voice low. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. “You can’t stop me.”_

_“Oh yes I can!” he said, yelling suddenly. He sat forward in his recliner, a shaking finger pointed in her face. “Know your place, girl!”_

_“Girl, girl!” Annie yelled. “You always just call me ‘girl’! Do you even know my real name, Dad? It’s Annie!”_

_“Do_ not _take that tone with me,” he growled, lifting himself slowly out of the chair like a dog raising its hackles. Annie resisted the urge to step back. “Go to your room. And don’t you dare talk to me this way again.”_

_Annie’s eyes stung. “Mom would have let me go,” she said. She didn’t mutter it. She spoke it, loud and clear, and knew immediately that she shouldn’t have. Her father’s face twisted, enraged and horrible. With the foreboding noise of hundreds of springs creaking and bones cracking, he raised himself all the way out of his chair and started taking huge, angry steps towards her, yelling the whole way._

_“No she wouldn’t have! Because she didn’t care! She didn’t give a damn about you! Why do you think she left? She couldn’t be bothered to take care of you! She didn’t love you, and she never will!”_

_Annie’s back was against the wall, her father’s red face too close to hers, spit flying from his gray lips and his eyes screwed into slits of rage. Annie’s chest shook._

_“You’re wrong,” she said, her voice shaking. Tears blurred her vision. “Just because she didn’t love you doesn’t mean she didn’t love me.”_

_There was a sudden, loud smashing noise. Annie screamed and jumped back in fear as her father threw his beer bottle furiously to the floor. Shards of glass flew across the floor, one of them sticking in Annie’s ankle. She looked up at her father’s face, trembling. There was complete silence except for the sound of her shaky little sobs and his heavy breathing._

_“You shut your goddamn mouth,” he said, his lips shaking and his teeth gritted. Annie backed towards the door, not taking her fearful eyes off of him as she fumbled with the lock. “Good! Leave! Get out! I don’t want to see your face!” he shouted as the lock clicked open and she ran out the door, not closing it behind her._

_He didn’t follow her. She wasn’t sad or freaked out. She was angry. Angry that he would say those things. He was wrong. He was fucking wrong. Her mom loved her. It was her dad that was the bad guy. Right? How much could she really remember? Maybe her dad was right. But- no. If her dad loved her, he wouldn’t have hurt her._

_She stopped in her tracks. That’s right. If he loved her, he wouldn’t treat her like this. So that meant he didn’t love her._ My dad doesn’t love me, _she thought. It felt like a punch to the gut, that realization. It was her and her father alone in that house, and he didn’t love her._

_The streetlamps were buzzing over her head as she treaded through the streets. She didn’t know where she was going. Where do you go when you realize your own father doesn’t care about you?_

_Your friends, she realized. You go to your friends. Even if your family doesn’t care about you, your friends will. She turned around and began walking towards Reiner’s house- it was closest._

_The night was silent but for the slapping of her flip-flops on the road. Most of the streetlights here didn’t work, and she squinted into the darkness in front of her to see. Then, out of nowhere, something smashed into her._

_“Hey! Watch where you’re going, bitch!”_

_She could see the outline of a guy now- a stumbling, gangling guy. A drunk guy. She remembered the bottle in her father’s hand. That same bottle being smashed on the ground as he told her that her mother didn’t love her. The tiny crumb of glass still stinging her ankle._

_“Bitch, huh?” he said, biting her lip. Then, without another moment of hesitation, she turned- pull your momentum from the ground- swung her fist- keep your thumb outside your fingers so it doesn’t get crushed- and punched him square in the eye._

_“Augh! What the fuck!” yelled the guy, holding a hand over his eye. She raised her arm again._

_“Annie?”_

_Reiner and Bertholdt were standing behind the man, staring at her in horror and confusion._

_Shit._

_“My…my dad,” she said. She felt trapped, a deer in the headlights. Her voice felt disembodied. “He hates me…my mom…the bottle…he threw it at me.”_

_“Why are you beating up that guy?” asked Bertholdt quietly._

_“Yeah, what the hell, you bitch?” he asked, stumbling around._

_“He bumped into me, and he’s- he’s drunk, he called me a bitch, I just-” Tears were coming again. “I- I needed to do something! I needed to hit something! Someone! I- I had to!”_

_Reiner and Bertholdt just stared at her. Her throat felt tight. Then Reiner stepped forward and grabbed the guy under his armpits._

_“Ow- hey! What is this?” he yelled, swinging his fists weakly._

_“Go ahead,” said Reiner, staring at her. “Take one last hit. Get it all out. I’m serious. If it’ll make you feel better, just do this. Then we’re done.”_

_Annie stared at him._

_“Reiner- Annie-” said Bertholdt nervously._

_“What?” she asked swinging to face him. “What do you think I should do? Tell me, please. Bertholdt, please tell me.”_

_Bertholdt stared at her with eyes that loved her a little too much. “Do it. Do what you have to do. I won’t tell anyone.”_

_Annie stepped forward._

_“Wha…wait…” slurred the guy, looking up at her nervously. She pulled her fist back, put all her weight behind it, and threw it into his stomach. He made a stifled gasping noise, the sort of noise that would’ve been really loud if there had been any air behind it. Annie stared down at him. She felt good. Powerful. There was now one more person in the world who would never fuck with her again._

_“Can you breathe?” she asked him._

_“I- I’m calling the cops,” he wheezed, sucking in air._

_“No you’re not,” Reiner answered. “You’re getting in my car, and I’m dropping you off back in town.” He grabbed the man under his armpits, and, with one very charged look back at Annie, helped him limp down the rest of the way to his driveway._

_Bertholdt turned to look at Annie._

_“Bertholdt…” she said. She didn’t know what to say. What was there to say?_

_“Your dad hurt you?” he asked._

_“He wouldn’t let me go to the dance,” she said. It sounded so stupid now. “I said my mom would let me, and he got really mad and smashed a bottle on the floor. A shard of it got in my ankle, and I ran away. To here. Then I beat up a guy,” she said, then hugged her arms around herself. Oh God. She’d just beat up some guy._

_There was more silence. The left side of Bertholdt’s face was lit up by the moon, his pale lips pressed together and his eyes wary. Finally, he said, “Your ankle? Let me see it.”_

_They sat down together on the sidewalk and Annie showed her ankle to him. With big, tender fingers, he prodded at the skin around where the glass was stuck. Annie sucked in a breath._

_“Sorry,” he said quickly, withdrawing his hands. He looked up at her. “I’m going to try to get it out.”_

_Annie nodded. Bertholdt pulled out his phone and instructed her to hold it over her ankle. He leaned his face in close, carefully gripped the piece of glass between the pads of his fingers, and slowly pulled it out. A tiny drop of blood sprouted from the cut, burst, and trickled down to her foot. Bertholdt wiped gently at it. Too gently. Annie pulled her foot away._

_“Sorry-” he said quickly._

_“It’s fine,” she muttered. The atmosphere felt weird now. Annie stared down at her lap._

_“I’m glad you got that out of your system,” he said finally. “Sometimes…” He looked away. “Sometimes I want to do that, too. Hurt someone.” Those words in Bertholdt’s voice were jarring._

_“Yeah?” Annie asked, surprised. “Why?”_

_“Usually because someone hurt me,” he responded._

_“That sounds right,” Annie replied. The two of them stood up and started walking back to Reiner’s house. They waited for him in his room after hurriedly greeting his half-asleep mother on the family room couch. When Reiner came back, he closed the door behind him and sat down with the two of them on his bed._

_“Annie,” he said. “That was fucking amazing.”_

_Annie cracked a small smile. They talked a lot that night- enough to agree that what she’d done was cool. Yeah, cool. She felt better. Hell, she’d do it again. She’d punch him harder, more. Reiner let her sleep on the floor next to Bertholdt that night, and she’d gone to sleep feeling reassured. That what she’d done made sense, was reasonable, was right. But what she knew was so different from what she felt. And she knew what she’d done. And she knew what she had started, even then._

            Two weeks later, Reiner broke up with his girlfriend. Well actually, she dumped him. He wasn’t just angry, he was angry-sad-embarrassed. He needed to take it out on something. Annie and Bertholdt followed a few steps behind him through the nighttime streets as he walked with miserable determination in his footsteps. Finally, they found what he’d been looking for- a road near the school where there were nothing but boarded-up pawn shops and takeout places. He pulled a rock out of his pocket, took aim, and threw it through the window of an abandoned Thai food place. There was an enormous shattering noise as they clapped their hands over their ears and thick slabs of glass cascaded down from under the faded awning. Then it was silent. They all stared around themselves at the wreckage, then looked slowly back up at each other.

            “Go,” said Reiner urgently. “Go, go, go.” They took off running as fast as they could back down the street as a car turned around the corner. The cool air and smacking of shoes on pavement echoed in their ears, and they made it back to Bertholdt’s house in five minutes flat.

            It took a long time, but Bertholdt finally cracked too. To be honest, Annie hadn’t really thought he’d had it in him, but apparently his father losing his job was enough. They spray painted the brick wall outside of the school with swear words, crudely drawn pictures, and random splotches. It was all anyone could talk about the next day- _Oh my God, did you see the wall? I wonder who did it? Dude, it’s actually great. Do you know how much it’s gonna cost to fix that?_

And that, Annie thinks, is how they became addicts. It isn’t necessarily the thrill of the crime itself (although that does help), but the fame that follows. The hushed murmurs, and the not-so-hushed ones. The wondering and musing about who’d done it, and the knowledge that it had been them. Walking around amongst the rest of the world, knowing that they’re the mysterious criminals everyone’s talking about, that they have the power to open their mouths and create a scandal- it’s exhilarating.

            Annie had lied to Mikasa. Her father isn’t just neglectful- he’s abusive, and she knows it. She’s not blind. But sometimes she thinks she is, because no matter how obvious he makes it that he doesn’t care about her, she can’t ever stop hoping that maybe, just _maybe_ he does. Deep down. Deep down, he has to still care. There’s one memory she has of him- they’re in the backyard, kicking a soccer ball back and forth over the brilliant green grass. She remembers laughing and shrieking as she bounded back and forth to get the ball, and she remembers her father smiling too. What’s more, that was _after_ her mother had left. So she knows he has it in him to be a good father, and she always thinks, if she just gives it a couple more weeks, he’ll turn it around.

            Annie reluctantly sits up and pushes the covers back for real this time. Hangover or no, she has to face the world at some point today.

**********

            Annie doesn’t know what to expect when she gets to the field for the game- the entire team to be standing in a line with their arms folded and Mikasa pointing an accusing finger at her, probably. But they’re all just standing around stretching- obviously. Obviously. How would they even know? They wouldn’t. They didn’t. They’d better not.

            Then she sees Mikasa.

            And Mikasa is also stretching and not acting weird.

            Maybe because she hasn’t seen Annie yet. Annie’s suddenly not sure- just a few days ago, things had been coming to her so easily with Mikasa, and now she’s back to square one- wondering if it’s okay to walk over to her. Of course it’s okay to walk over to her- they’re the captains. But will she remember? As Annie treks across the field, she can’t decide if she hopes Mikasa remembers or not. She shouldn’t want her too, but…she sort of does. She wants something to _happen._

            “Hey,” she says, regarding Mikasa nervously. Mikasa stands up and fixes her with a gaze.

            “Hey,” she says back. And something in her tone lets Annie know that she remembers. She remembers everything. Fuck. Fuck. She’s so fucked.

            Annie drops her bag on the grass and sits down in a butterfly position so she won’t have to look at Mikasa. “So, um, who are we playing again?” she asks, hoping her voice sounds normal. Her throat feels half-clogged, and her face is warm. She feels it just then- that overwhelming sense of self-hate she gets sometimes. In that moment, she hates herself so much. She wants someone to come hit her in the face. She wouldn’t retaliate. She wants Mikasa to slap her in the face, kick her in the stomach, anything. She hates herself- hates herself for doing something stupid, for fucking up something good. And she’d been drunk when she did it. Alcohol. Fucking alcohol. It ruins everything in her life- she wishes she could say she’d learned her lesson and wouldn’t drink again, but she knows that’ll only last until someone offers her a bottle again. She hates herself. She hates herself so much. She-

            “Annie? Are you okay?” asks Mikasa, sounding genuinely worried. There’s caring in her voice- caring that shouldn’t be there. But it helps. It makes Annie feel just the littlest better, and just like that, the fog lifts.

            “Yeah, sorry, just tired,” she mutters, unfolding her legs and pushing her hair out of her face. She forces herself to look Mikasa in the eye, and to her surprise, she doesn’t encounter any hostility whatsoever. Her eyes are kind, worried, caring- and slightly wary, perhaps, but she doesn’t look upset. “You said Eisenhower, right? Oh, we’ll kick their ass easy. They’re total shit.”

            Mikasa laughed. “Don’t jinx it.”

            “You believe in jinxing?”

            “A little.”

            “Dipshit.”  
            _So this is how it’s going to be,_ Annie thinks as Mikasa calls the team to huddle up. _We’re just going to act like nothing happened? I guess I can make that work._

They win the game by a landslide, and afterwards, when the rest of the team has left, Mikasa digs a bag of Goldfish out of her jacket pocket.

            “Want some?” she asks, waving it in her face.

            “Come on, Mikasa, you know I want some,” says Annie, sticking her hand in. As she’s pulling it out, it brushes against Mikasa’s fingers. Annie stiffens, but Mikasa does nothing. She risks a glance up at the other girl’s face. Her expression is almost unreadable, but Annie thinks she sees just the hint of something- a challenge. Annie sticks them in her mouth and makes a big show of licking her fingers, then looks at Mikasa sideways out of narrow eyes. A devious little smile twists her lips.

            “You’ve got a weird look on your face,” Reiner tells Annie when he comes to pick her up.

            “Your face looks weird every day,” replies Annie absent mindedly, ignoring Reiner’s splutter of protest. She touches her lips and discovers that she does have a little smile on them. She can’t help it- Mikasa’s finally brought her a new challenge. She hasn’t quite decided what she’s going to do about it, but all that matters is it’s there. A new challenge. A spark. Whatever happened, Mikasa isn’t just going to let it fade, and neither is Annie.

            “Turn here,” Bertholdt reminds Reiner, and everything comes crashing back down. That’s right- they’re going to graffiti the wall outside the Burger King tonight. She’d suggested it about a week ago, but now she doesn’t really feel like it. All she can think about is how Mikasa would react if she knew this is what Annie does in her spare time.

            “I’m gonna put a great big dick on the wall and write _Zach Reynolds_ on it,” Reiner announces, parking the car between two stuttering streetlights.

            “You should be an artist,” Annie deadpans, climbing out of the car without even opening the door. Bertoldt turns on his phone’s flashlight feature, and Reiner holds up the softly clinking plastic bag of spray paint cans. Annie stares jealously at his dark zip-up hoodie, wishing she’d thought to bring something to put on. They creep around past the big windows spilling smudgy orange light to the blackened parking lot in the back, where two shit-heap cars are parked- probably belong to the kids desperately trying to get a wink of sleep behind the counter now. Reiner checks the time, then grabs some cans out of the bag and tosses them to Annie and Bertoldt.

            “Reiner!” hisses Bertholdt as he almost drops his.

            “What, you’re telling me that after two years on a football team you still can’t catch things when they’re thrown at you?”

            Annie can see his cheeks turn pink in the harsh light of his phone. “You should at least give me some warning- if I’d dropped it, someone might have heard it,” he says quietly.

            “Nah, their shifts don’t end for another forty-five minutes- no one’s coming out here for at least that long,” said Reiner, shaking his can and popping the cap off. Annie eyes his hoodie jealously as a chilly breeze sweeps through the parking lot. Reiner gets to work immediately blaspheming Zach Reynolds’ name all over the back wall as Bertholdt absent-mindedly sprays some random lines across the left end of it. Annie moves her arm in a huge, satisfying, swooping motion and watches with pleasure as a violently purple heart appears in front of her. As she focuses on thickening the lines, the air around her is silent but for the hissing and occasional rattle of paint cans. She glances to the side and sees Reiner- who’s taken his jacket off and dropped it on the ground, the ungrateful bastard- writing in huge letters, _ZACH REYNOLDS IS A COCKSUCKER._ Something about this pisses her off for some reason.

            “Why the fuck does everyone use that as an insult?” she demands, breaking the silence. Both Reiner and Bertoldt turn to face her.

            “What, cocksucker?” asks Reiner in a confused voice, pointing a thumb at the graffiti in front of her.

            Annie folds her arms over her chest. “Yeah. What’s wrong with sucking dick?”

            Reiner laughs. “Got something to tell us, Annie?”

            Annie glowers at him. “No. I just mean that guys seem to think it’s the worst fucking thing they can say to each other.”

            “Well, ‘cause it’s saying he’s gay,” Bertholdt says with the voice of a teacher genuinely baffled by the stupidity of his students. Annie feels very defensive and awkward all of a sudden.

            “So?” she demands. “Why would you give a shit? Why is that a bad thing?”

            Reiner glances from her to Bertholdt as if saying to him, _the hell’s she on about?_ Bertholdt has the nerve, the fucking _nerve_ to shrug at him as if to say, _girls, man, I don’t know._

            “It’s not a bad thing,” Reiner says finally. “It’s just something people say. _You_ say it. I heard you call Lewis a cocksucker, like, a week ago.”

            “Well, I shouldn’t have,” says Annie, feeling like even more of a shitty human being than usual. “Paint over that,” she orders suddenly.

            “What, cocksucker?” asks Reiner, looking bewildered. “Why?”

            “Because I said,” Annie replies, trying to keep her voice under control. “Just do it, Reiner.”

            “Annie, what the fuck-”

            “I said to just do it!” Annie yells. Bertoldt flinches, and both he and Reiner look around nervously.

            “God, okay,” says Reiner, sounding simultaneously pissed off and apprehensive. He lifts his paint can up, but before he gets the chance to use it, there’s the sound of a door opening and an employee calling out, “Hey, is someone there?”

            They all exchange a horrified look.

            “Dumbass, they heard you!” hisses Reiner.

            “Just go!” Bertholdt whispers as the door opens wider and footsteps advance towards them. Annie and Reiner bend down and gather up as many cans as they can in their arms. They scurry around the right side of the building and press themselves inside the little alcove formed by a maintenance door, shoulders shoved together. Annie doesn’t need to look up to know Bertholdt’s face is turning bright red at the contact. As soon as the footsteps fade away again, she pushes herself out and leads the way back to Reiner’s car. They’re silent on the way back. She can tell that Bertoldt could tell that she could tell and ugh. Everything is tense and weird, _again._

Reiner finally breaks the silence to say, “I left my jacket there.”

            “It’ll be fine,” Bertholdt says at the exact same time Annie says, “That’s what you get for taking it off.”

            They’re silent again, then Reiner turns around to say, “Annie, are you okay?”

            “Reiner, keep your eyes on the road,” Bertholdt begs.

            “I’m serious, Annie, what was that back there?” says Reiner, ignoring Bertholdt.

            Annie lets out a huff of breath, fluttering the hair hanging in front of her face. She watches the flashing lights of the cars outside glitter off her nail polish as she hangs her hand out the window. “Nothing. I just- I mean why is calling someone gay the ultimate insult? It’s so fucking stupid. Why does everyone think it’s such a bad thing to be gay? Like, no one says anything to Ymir and Krista. It’s like you don’t even realize that that word actually _means_ something. Like…gay people are real. They exist.” She stops just in time to realize that not only is she rambling, she sounds really fucking stupid. Reiner and Bertholdt are exchanging their she’s-acting-weird glances again and Annie wishes she were on a different planet.

            “Okay,” Reiner says finally. “We won’t say that stuff anymore, we promise.”

            “No, I just- you can say whatever you want. Ugh! Shit. Whatever. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Just…do what you want,” she says, slouching down in her seat. Her face is red and she feels stupid and embarrassed. Embarrassed. This is so embarrassing. She’s acting so dumb. She feels almost like there’s a wall between her and the boys- they’re all speaking, and asking, and listening, but no one is hearing. Nothing is getting through this wall. The backseat has never felt so isolated. She feels so incredibly tired all of a sudden- she just wants to crawl up and fall asleep.

            “Annie,” Bertholdt’s voice, soft and gentle, passes suddenly through the wall. Annie looks up. “If there’s something wrong, please just tell us. I… _we_ want to know. So we can help you. Like we always do. You know we’ll help you. Is it your dad?”

            Annie sighs. They mean the best, she knows they do. And she knows they care and will do everything they can to help her. But for once, she doesn’t think they can. “No, everything’s just been weird and stressful lately. Seriously, just ignore me. I’m fine.”

            She’s not fine, though, really. She keeps thinking about Mikasa, and thinking about how she keeps thinking about Mikasa, and thinking about how weird/gross it is that she’s thinking about Mikasa so much. What it means about Mikasa. What it means about Annie. She’s pretty sure she knows, but hell if she’s going to admit that to herself. She’d have to rethink her whole…everything. It would be like living her entire life behind red-tinted lenses and then suddenly having them replaced by blue-tinted ones and being told to act exactly the same. Everything would be different, and she doesn’t think she’s ready for that.

            “D’you guys want food or anything?” asks Reiner.

            “Just take me home,” says Annie tiredly. As usual, Reiner stops the car and lets her out at the top of her street as opposed to in front of her house. Even though her dad is probably out drinking somewhere, she doesn’t want to risk anything. She hurries through her back door, has a slight internal debate when confronted by a can of Coke surrounded by Bud Lite’s, grabs the Coke, and goes upstairs. Her room is huge, but it always feels like a prison. Her dad rules the downstairs while she scampers from room to room up above, trying not to cross paths with him. She hates being in the house _period,_ and she thinks vaguely about how nice it would be to have a car. She does fine stealing money from her dad’s pockets when he’s passed out-drunk, but the money in the account he started before she was born is exactly enough to get her through college. Assuming she gets a scholarship, she’ll need any extra money from it to find her mom- nothing left over to buy a car with.

            _Mikasa has a car,_ she thinks. Except it’s more just Eren’s car- she’s actually never seen Mikasa drive it. She thinks about Mikasa driving her somewhere in that car- just the two of them, the windows open, their hair blowing around, the inside warm from the sunlight. Then Mikasa would pull over on some abandoned road surrounded by green grass and wildflowers, and she’d lean over, and-

            No. She wouldn’t lean over. They wouldn’t be on some abandoned road. The farthest Mikasa would ever drive her would be to practice and back. God, but she wants that, the sunlight and the car and the flowers and Mikasa. Mikasa more than anything. She’s so confused, she wants to scream.

            She downs the rest of her soda, tosses the can across the room into the garbage, and slides down under her covers, fully clothed. She wishes she could say she falls right asleep, but in truth, the thought of Mikasa’s skin on hers keeps her up for hours.

**Author's Note:**

> this should update weekly- Eren's chapter is next! also i posted a kumirei thing for femslash feb that i may or may not finish, so check that out too if you're interested


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